Jalaj P. Jha Technical & Miscellaneous Ramblings

Do Not Disturb Registry : How it works?

“Good Morning Sir, This is ……… calling on behalf of ……… Bank. As you are an employee of ………, our bank is offering a free for lifetime ………credit card”

Sounds familiar? All the Banks want you take its Credit Card, as if Banks were not enough, all big retail chains also launched their co-branded credit cards. Even when you go for a credit card, they will still haunt you with their health/life insurance offerings. They only need your phone/mobile number once and that will stay for lifetime in their database and come back periodically and repeatedly with the offers. After all when all media for advertisements have gone dearer, it’s only the telecommunication that’s getting cheaper day by day. Additionally the conversion rates for this medium is higher than any other media thus making it the first choice to get customers.

But this medium is different from others in another important comparison point. You watch a TV commercial when you are watching TV, read an advertisement in newspaper when you are reading other news. Importantly you can choose to ignore the ads at your will. But a telemarketer does not see your convenience. He may ring at odd hours against your will and cause inconvenience and frustration.

To protect telecom customers from these unnecessary calls government started the Nation Do Not Call Registry which will centrally store the phone numbers of all the customers who do not want to be called for commercial promotions and offers. A customer can get his name added in this registry through his telecom company by sending SMS or email as facilitated by the company. Once the company receives the request it will upload the number to the registry. This may take a few days depending on the frequency at which the telecom company uploads the data.

The telemarketers, on the other hand, are required to register themselves with the registry as telemarketers, which gives them facility to get their telephone database filtered removing numbers registered for DND. There are expected to perform this exercise at least every 45 days. If a telemarketer calls a person who have been in DND registry for more than 45 days and the person on other end lodges a complaint, action is taken against the  telemarketer that may range from warning (on first incidence), high tariff (Rs500 per call) or disconnection of number.

Does this work? Yes it does! All you need to do is get started.

Contact the customer care of your telecom company and seek information on how to register for DND. Act on the information and register your number. Wait for a few days for the telecom company to upload your number to central registry. To check if your number is uploaded or not check this status page. If it’s still not uploaded, follow up with telecom company. When it’s uploaded, the status page will show date on which upload took place. Note this date and add 45 days to it after which if you still receive any call, action can be taken against the telemarketer on your complaint.

If you receive any call or sms after 45 days of DND upload, note the phone number, type of commercial message, date and time and lodge a complaint with your telecom customer care. Insist them to give you complaint number. Once a complaint is lodged your telecom company is expected to revert with the actions taken within 28-35 days.

How do you think will these telemarketers stop? With your initiative! Act now and register for DND!! Take action against telemarketers when they call even after 45 days after inclusion in National DNC registry and they will be bound to stop calling you or any other DND protected customer.