Wednesday, March 19, 2008

A joke called "National Do Not Call Registry"

The Do Not Call Registry of TRAI is a farce. Registering with this registry does not seem to have any effect on the number of calls that you receive from Tele Marketers. If you go to their website http://ndncregistry.gov.in/ndncregistry/index.jsp they have a section called Information For Subscribers and inside that How to File Complaints. If you get very excited on seeing that don't, in that page this is what is written

"Subscriber may make complaints if he receives Unsolicited Commercial Communication(UCC) even after 45 days of successful inclusion of his number, he may complain the same to his Telecom service provider. Please contact your telecom service provider for more Details."


If you click on the Details link it will take you to a document that has the contact numbers of all the telecom service providers.

Yesterdays newspaper had the following headline


And I have one basic doubt in the whole process working and that is

If the person who you have to complaint to is the telecom operator and thats the same person that is to be paying the penalty why would that person even bother to acknowledge the complaint.

Assuming that in this Utopian world that will happen I still have the following questions that I have not got answers from either the TRAI or the Telecom Operator
  • What is the format of the complaint?
  • What is the proof that is needed to file the complaint?
  • What is the acknowledgment that the complaint has been accepted?
  • Who is the arbitrator for the complaint?
  • How long will the complaint be resolved in?
It looks like a lot of people out there are looking for answers lets hope something comes out of all of this and we are saved from the plague of tele-marketers. Here are some links to others that are facing the same problem

No end to nuisance calls
India’s Do Not Call Registry: A Failure
The 'Do Not Call' registry farce

2 comments:

Waterfox said...

Sudeep I registered on this site, individually for all the companies calling me. It seemed tedious but I stopped getting calls after some time.

However I can't say if it was due to registration or telling the callers that I am registered. Dont call me :)

Indian Home Maker said...

I ask the callers where they got my number from, they say from the bank...but how many banks manage to get the numbers, I think it is just that they call one number after another, as Mandira discovered, here http://churningthewordmill.wordpress.com/ It has ceased to be as annoying now that we make them bakras, but let me tell you, sometimes you have visitors, sometimes you are on another phone, or cooking ..it is still a nuisance. And I got a call today morning also.

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