Ofcom comes down hard on 'silent calls' | The Register

Ofcom comes down hard on 'silent calls' | The Register

Hard - £35,000 fine for Carephone Warehouse... Gee - that hurts. NOT.

These type of fines are insulting to the consumers who are allegedly protected from illicit business practices such as silent calls and other forms of unwanted and intrusive marketing.

From my point of view the scale of penalty for the fines - and the fact that it took nearly 3 years to actually levy the fines - is a huge part of the problem.

So long as there is no meaningful punishment for these types of business practices, the laddish yobs of business will continue to take advantage of the general consumer.

So - what to do?

I believe that fines should be sufficient to be relevant to the business. Rather than fixed penalty fees they should be a percentage of gross revenues.

For instance: If a fine is agreed for silent calls at £50,000 - it will be a major impact to a small company, but have absolutely nil effect on a big company. A fine of £1,000,000 will kill a small company (rather than just penalize them) but will make a larger impact on a big company.

However - if you say that the fine is 5% of the gross revenues of the offending company - then you have guaranteed to make a significant impact that is representative of the company - regardless of how large or small.

Education is part of the solution.

But - I'm a bit of a realist too. Until we can begin educating the students of today that these types of business practices ( silent calls, SPAM, anonymous flyers and leaflets ) are not only ineffective, but also socially unacceptable to the point that there is a significant negative impact on profits - then we'll continue to have the yobs of business assaulting the general population.