A feeling of helplessness. Despite the numerous measures adopted in recent years, the French continue to be bothered on a daily basis by abusive telephone canvassing. Senator Pierre-Jean Verzelen, member of the Les Indépendants – République et Territoires group, as well as several of his colleagues therefore tabled a bill to strengthen consumer protection.
The text was adopted this Thursday, November 14 at first reading in the Senate by 340 votes for and 0 against. In other words, a very broad consensus of elected officials from the left, the center and the right. Here are the key takeaways.
Correct the deficiencies of previous texts
The law introduces certain essential measures. We therefore retain the ban on canvassing by telephone a consumer who has not previously expressed their consent to be the subject of commercial prospecting by this means. If this measure is approved, it is a total game changer for the sector, and you will theoretically no longer be bothered unless you have given your consent.
Quoted by West FrancePierre-Jean Verzelen underlines in this regard: “Each French person will be able to continue to be canvassed, but they will have to take the step of registering with the companies that can call them. It makes the consumer an actor since he decides who has the right to call him or not and it puts an end to multiple calls” .
In addition to this measure, which would represent enormous progress, the text establishes the impossibility of selling a good or providing a service via consent by telephone canvassing. This is again positive, as some unscrupulous sellers tend to take advantage of it.
There are also restrictions on canvassing times which are now limited to 7 hours per day and two calls or attempted calls per period of 60 days. Finally, if the customer objects to the conversation continuing, the merchant must end the call immediately and must not contact them again.
Bloctel, a disappointing tool?
The text will now take its course and it must first be adopted by the National Assembly before entering into force. Through their action, parliamentarians also want to respond to the shortcomings of the Bloctel system which has shown its limits. The latter currently only has 12 million registered numbers, or 10% of French telephone lines. As for those who have taken the step, they still report receiving unwanted calls, which illustrates the flaws in the system.
Another question: what about the canvassing sector which represents between 29,000 and 40,000 jobs in France? According to the defenders of this proposal, this sector is in crisis and canvassing would have been outsourced to countries where labor is cheaper.
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