Neil McNicholas: Calling the useless quangos to account

YOU know the phrase about a chocolate fireguard or a chocolate teapot...
Should more be done to stop nuisance phone calls?Should more be done to stop nuisance phone calls?
Should more be done to stop nuisance phone calls?

I finally reached the end of my tether with sales-pitch phone calls and silent phone calls – especially when I was waiting for a call at any time from the care home when my mother was approaching the end of her life – and paid to have caller identification on my phone precisely so I could report them.

I was inclined not to believe that they were, as they claimed, from BT’s technical department given that I’m not a BT customer anyway, but also the fact that having blocked the number, they changed to another which I blocked, and then to a third which I also blocked.

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That sort of practice is quite clearly devious and even BT would surely not stoop to such tactics, would they?

And so I duly registered a complaint and the numbers with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) with whom my phone number has been registered for some years – uselessly as far as I am concerned (chocolate teapots).

It claims on its website to be the official register on which you can record your wish not to receive unsolicited sales or marketing calls. It is illegal for companies to call numbers that are on that register (they probably don’t even bother to check) and yet the practice continues. And their response? That the nature of my complaint was not in their remit!

My reply to the person who emailed me was to ask if it was in his remit to collect his salary every week given that I fail to understand what he is being paid for. Anytime I have ever registered a complaint with the TPS, or Ofcom for that matter, the response is always the same – nothing is ever within their remit.

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Ofcom is another typical quango – paid by the Government but seemingly unaccountable to anyone.

And what is Ofcom’s remit according to their website? “Our main legal duties are to ensure people who watch television and listen to radio are protected from harmful or offensive material – including regulating the BBC in accord with its Charter”. I’ve lost count of how many times I have complained about offensive programme content on television (particularly the BBC) and all Ofcom ever says is... (yes you know the rest).

Their website goes on: “We regulate the television, radio and video-on-demand sectors (and) make sure that people in the UK get the best from their communication services and are protected from scams and sharp practices.”

In 2013, Ofcom and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said they would improve their call and message tracing processes to track down those responsible for making nuisance and silent phone calls and target enforcement. So how come we are still receiving such calls four years later? (chocolate fireguard).

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They were also going to assess how well the TPS was working for consumers. Well I can answer that question for them without any further waste of money on their part. And I say that because apparently in 2012 it was reported that Ofcom spent £9.4m making 223 members of staff redundant and then promptly recruited another 598 to take their place. Where do you go to register that sort of complaint? Ofrip?

Somebody, somewhere, whether it is the TPS, Ofcom, or the ICO, are supposed to apply their resources and supposed manifold areas of expertise and technology (which surely has by now moved beyond carrier pigeons), to monitor and prosecute those who make silent, unsolicited or bogus calls. And yet quite clearly they don’t otherwise we wouldn’t still be receiving them.

As I said, in the last two weeks, I have registered three numbers with the TPS to absolutely no avail. Whoever and wherever they were from, they quite deliberately changed numbers each time. How are they not a definition of nuisance calls, bogus calls, unsolicited calls, scams and sharp practice? Therefore how are my complaints not the remit of somebody whether the TPS, Ofcom, or the ICO?

I have this picture in my head of the people who run these organisations sunning themselves on a golden beach somewhere (further south than Cleethorpes) financed by the salaries they are being paid for a job that is never their remit and sending out emails saying so. Indeed, could they be the very people who are sending all these unsolicited and nuisance calls in the first place in order to perpetuate their holidays in the sun?

Of course, conspiracy theories are not my remit!

Neil McNicholas is a parish priest in Yarm.

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