Two million Australians give telemarketers the flick

Stuart Corner
Monday, 02 June 2008 06:10

IT Industry - Strategy

ACMA chairman Chris Chapman said that a recent ACMA-commissioned survey showed overwhelming community support for the register with more than 90 percent of respondents agreeing that it was a useful initiative. In its first year of operation, the ACMA received more than 20,000 complaints from customers who had received calls despite listing their number on the register. These lead to 18 formal investigations.

According to the ACMA "complaints are largely driven by systemic non-compliance within a relatively small section of the industry, with five percent of the businesses ACMA has received complaints about responsible for about 70 percent of the total complaints received. ACMA's formal investigations are focusing on these businesses."

The ACMA's policy is to initiate an informal approach to a business that is the subject of complaints and only to launch an investigation if the complaints persist. It said that about 60 percent of the businesses that had received an informal notification had ceased to be the subject of consumer complaints within four to six weeks.

It added: "There are signs that industry compliance is improving with the average number of complaints received per month falling from 3,538 in the first three months of operation to around 1,900 in the three months to April 2008."

Registration of numbers on the register is free and available online at www.donotcall.gov.au . However, the register does not apply to Government bodies, educational or religious organisations, registered political parties, independent members of parliament, electoral candidates and charities. Market and social researchers are also permitted to call when conducting opinion polling and standard questionnaire-based research. However there are restrictions on the times at which such calls can be made.