Government proposes holding brokers responsible for unsolicited calls
Government has proposed holding banks, insurances companies, real estate developers and brokers, as well as other enities, including agencies making pesky calls on their behalf responsible for contacting people through numbers that are not registered with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India https://www.trai.gov.in/ ( Trail ). Taking note of violation of consumer rights and treating unsolicited calls as unfair trade practice, the consumer affairs department held a consultation with stakeholders last week and circulated draft guildelines to deal with this problems.
Sources said the departments guildelines will primarily focus on protecting consumer interest and help them identify pesky call. Ince consumers lodge complaints aganist such unwated calls with the National Consumer Helpline https://consumerhelpline.gov.in/ , action under the Consumer Protection Act https://consumeraffairs.nic.in/acts-and-rules/consumer-protection would be initoated. TOI has learnt that there would be three separate series of numbers-"140" for marketing, "160" for services calls and "111" for communication by governmrnt agencies to alert or inform citizens so that people can easily identify the purpose of the caller.
The consumer affairs department has constitued a panel comprising of members from telecom industry, regulatory bodies such as telecom and financial services departments, Reserve Bank of India https://www.rbi.org.in/ , Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority https://irdai.gov.in/ , Trai, Cellular Operations Association of India https://www.coai.com/home , telemarketing companies and consumer organisations.
The department said such calls not only violate the privacy of usersbut also the rigts of consumers. Most of such calls are from the financial services sector followed by real estate. It was also pointed out that spam callers are now switching to internet call, especially using WhatsApp to lure customers into ponzi schemes.
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