Back in January I wrote about how Tele2 have been annoying us with unsolicited calls asking us to switch our phone to them. Since then, TalkTalk and Toucan Telecom have done the same, so they also go onto the boycott list (along with Esso, Nestle, Bacardi and probably GoDaddy as well). This is despite us being registered with the Telephone Preference Service as not wanting to receive unsolicited phone calls.
However, it looks like we’ve been lucky. BT’s recent advertising campaign has focussed on rogue salesmen from competing telecoms companies who have switched people’s phone lines over without permission. The Guardian had a consumer article about it in April (TalkTalk being the main culprit again) and again later on that month in a special report. The practice is known as “slamming” and used to be widespread in the energy sector – salesmen would either forge peoples’ signatures or ask them to sign a form to say that they’d ‘visited’ (but that they actually consented the switch). The next thing the customers knew would be a letter from their original supplier saying goodbye and a welcome letter from some random supplier.
Making unsoclicted calls is one thing but slamming is something else altogether. I’m sure if this happened in the US there’d be a class action lawsuit in the works but as it is I’m not sure what punishment, if any, these companies are getting, other than a few mouthy webloggers like me ranting about them.

Related Posts:

• No Related Posts