A couple of months ago, I decided to record my mobile number on the DO NOT CALL register through the ACMA website. This is not the first time I had recorded my number on this service, but as it was several years (sometime before COVID I think), I felt that it was probably wise to try and make sure that my phone number was currently recorded.
After all, I have been getting lots of rather annoying calls from marketers for all sorts of matters.
Like, for example, the Solar Panel business whom rang me as a cold call last October and who then did a very inadequate job of follow up on getting my meter reconfigured (I finally got it sorted out 5 months after they installed the panels).
Or before that, early last year when I got repeated cold calls day after day from a business which was offering to clean my heater. They did not understand (or listen properly) when I explained that I then had a space heater rather than a ducted heater and sent someone who did not know how to clean space heaters.
Moral of the story is that answering cold calls and actually agreeing to become a customer of those businesses something you are going to regret.
But those calls are just by the by.
Recently, I have started getting cold calls which then have a recorded voice say’ goodbye’ before hanging up, or other cold calls who hang up without hanging up.
Very annoying.
So… being both a grumpy late middle aged man and the retired middle ranking bureaucrat that I am, I have decided to take steps about this using the skills I acquired from 33 years of employment in the Federal Government.
First step is to start making records. I started an excel spreadsheet a week and a half ago, on which I am recording dates, times, phone numbers, and details of the calls. So far, I already have five calls recorded in a ten day period.
The next step, once I have enough data, is to lodge a complaint with the appropriate section in the ACMA.
I am not planning to leave it at that. I will be publishing those phone numbers on this blog once I get enough data to make it worth the effort. As well as that, I will be updating progress on whether ACMA take action and what sort of sanctions might occur – assuming that Federal Privacy Laws (which were amended to become rather obtuse in 2012) allow the ACMA to provide such updates.
Lost For Words! 