A text passed by the Senate provides that a client must give prior consent to be approached.
But this law is not expected to come into force immediately.
In the meantime, here are several solutions to protect yourself from cold calling.
Faced with telephone canvassing, the Senate adopted, this Thursday, November 14, a bill to strengthen the arsenal to fight against this practice. It provides that companies will have to ensure that they obtain the consent of the canvassed customer before calling them. But the text must still be voted on by the National Assembly, and consumer protection associations, like UFC-Que Choisir, fear that it will be slow to come into force. So in the meantime, here are several solutions to protect yourself from these unwanted sales calls.
The free Bloctel service
Created by the Hamon law in 2016, the Bloctel.gouv.fr site is a site managed by a private company, under the leadership of the DGCCRF, the general directorate for competition, consumption and the repression of fraud. This service allows individuals to no longer be approached by a professional via their telephone. After creating an account, the user will be able to register telephone numbers, landline or mobile, in order to exclude them from the mailing lists of companies practicing telephone canvassing.
The subscription, free, lasts three years. If registration dates before January 1, 2022, the subscription is not automatically renewed. You will therefore have to note your telephone numbers again on the Bloctel list. All registrations made after this date are automatically renewed every three years. And if a company does not respect this mailing list, it can be fined up to 375,000 euros. Today, more than six million French people are registered on Bloctel.
Applications that identify touts
Many apps are available to help spot cold calling calls, even before you pick up. Truecaller, Call Blocker, Call control, Block Numbers, Orange Telephone, Google Telephone… There are many services. Each of these applications offer more or less the same services. They will make it possible to identify the caller, even if he is not recorded in the user’s directory.
Thanks to the reporting of these applications, it is also possible to block a number identified as spam, commercial calls or scams, an identification which is based on a community system. People who use these applications are invited to report the numbers of direct sellers which will then be integrated into a database. This is why it is recommended to choose an application with a large community, in order to benefit from the largest database of suspicious numbers. However, this solution only works for canvassing on mobile phones.
The UFC tool-What to choose
To limit intrusive calls, the consumer defense association, UFC-Que Choisir, has launched a free tool, accessible via the platform www.respectemesdatas.fr. After selecting their operator and giving their email address, the user receives a standard email. This allows you to request the deletion of the transfer of your telephone details to the public directory and to the operator’s partners. A solution based on the GDPR, which provides that “consumers’ contact details can only be transmitted to the public directory if they have positively and actively consented to it and regardless of their telephone method”.
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“I wasn’t suspicious”: a fraudulent canvassing network leaves hundreds of victims, tens of millions extorted
Telephone canvassing, while still authorized but regulated, should be distinguished from scams, by SMS or telephone call. To report and block these telephone numbers, it is advisable to go to the official platform for combating unwanted SMS and calls, 33700.fr.
