Are you tired of being regularly contacted by telephone canvassers? Fortunately, the law has changed and you can easily identify and block the numbers of these professional nuisances.
Cold calling is a real pain. An operator who offers you new packages, a so-called energy saving expert who encourages you to carry out work, a training organization who wants you to benefit from your CPF… All excuses are good to harass you and have you have to wear. A real pollution that spoils your daily life. However, if it was difficult to escape a few years ago, it is now quite simple to put an end to it.
Faced with abuse by professionals and complaints from consumers and associations, the Government has in fact taken measures to limit the problems linked to telephone canvassing. So, since 1is January 2023, Arcep (the telecoms police) prohibits the use of numbers starting with 06 and 07 for canvassing, these prefixes now being reserved for individuals.
In addition, the authorities have tightened the rules for canvassing by limiting calls to specific time slots, from Monday to Friday, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. then from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m., and by limiting the frequency of solicitations. Above all, Arcep has allocated special numbers for telephone platforms. Enough to do a first visual sorting of potential unwanted calls, when the number is displayed on the screen.
From now on, canvassing professionals must only use numbers starting with 0162, 0163, 0270, 0271, 0377, 0378, 0424, 0425, 0568, 0569, 0948 or 0949 to call mainland France. In Martinique, they must absolutely start with 09477, while, in Guadeloupe, Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthélemy, the numbers must start with 09475. For Reunion and Mayotte finally, they must start with 09479 or 09476 . These numbers can therefore be blocked without risk if you wish to avoid any canvassing.
In addition to these regulatory measures, there are filtering and blocking functions directly integrated into smartphones on Android and iOS. For several versions, Android has had an automatic detection function for unwanted calls which has proven to be very effective against touts. As soon as it spots an unsolicited number, the system's built-in Phone app reports a spam call in a notification, without even ringing the device. Practical to avoid being disturbed! You can then very easily block the number permanently.
On iPhone, it is also very easy to block a phone number. Even if it only works for numbers that have already contacted you, it's still a catch. To get rid of unwanted calls whose number you don't know, before the touts come to harass you, you can always automatically forward unknown and commercial calls to your voicemail.
Finally, note that in addition to blocking numbers on your phones, you can always use Bloctel, the free (public) service to which you must register in order to no longer be contacted by direct sellers. Although it is not 100% effective, it can still limit damage, particularly if you combine it with the blocking solutions offered by mobile operators. By combining all of these methods, you should no longer be bothered by direct sellers.
