The smartphone, the new target of telephone soliciting

If the door is closed, go through the window … The recent regulation prohibiting telephone soliciting during the lunch break, between 13 h and 14 h, and at night from 20 h and until 10 am, as well as on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays, has changed the behavior of telephone solicitation services ” Since they can no longer disturb people at home in the evening, they annoy them during the day on their mobile! And they don’t deprive themselves of it”, observes UFC What To Choose.

For the consumer defense association, the mobile phone increases the chances for canvassers to see their interlocutor pick up, thus allowing them to bypass the legal framework. And too bad, if this new channel is particularly intrusive. According to an online survey conducted at the end of September among a thousand French people, almost three-quarters (72%) say they are solicited at least once a week on their smartphone. For 38%, harassment is even daily.

Canvassing is not limited to calls. Almost half of the respondents (49%) say they receive at least one canvassing SMS per week, and 17% one per day. UFC What To Choose? that in a few years, “the smartphone has therefore become the preferred channel for canvassers. No wonder: the mobile phone is now widespread in all strata of the population while at the same time, the fixed line, him, declines ». In fact, soliciting by landline phone seems less urgent than in the past. 58% of French people nevertheless say that they are still disturbed on their landline every week and 41% every day.

Outlaw teleprospectors?

More generally, the new rules governing telephone soliciting, which came into force on March 1, do not seem to have borne fruit (yet). Still according to the same study, almost half of French people (48%) find that they are more disturbed than last year, against 32% think that they are as disturbed and 20% less often than before. The telephone canvassing is unanimous against him. It irritates almost all the French, that is to say 97% of the respondents, 77% of whom find it “very annoying”.

As a reminder, telesearch companies must, with the new regulatory framework, respect strict schedules but also restrict the volume of calls. A consumer may not be called more than four times per 30-day period, by the same professional or by a third party acting on his behalf. This count takes into account call attempts or answering machine messages.

In addition, professionals using automated call and message sending systems have been imposed, since January 1, series of telephone numbers starting with 0162, 0163, 0270, 0271, 0377, 0378, 0424, 0425, 0568, 0569, 0948 and 0949 in metropolitan France. Which makes them more easily identifiable.

While the Bloctel telephone opposition list has shown its limits – 82% of people registered on Bloctel would continue to be harassed by teleprospectors according to another study by the UFC Que Choisir -, the association advocates for a kind of opt-in applied to teleprospecting. « The government has had to multiply the measures in recent years […] nothing will really change as long as it is not banned as a whole, or at least that the consent of the recipients is obtained before any campaign. »