Text 3752, 83 rader
Skriven 2012-09-10 15:49:22 av Robert Bashe (2:2448/44)
   Kommentar till text 3748 av mark lewis (1:3634/12.0)
Ärende: Unlisted phone numbers
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mark lewis wrote to Robert Bashe on Monday September 10 2012 at 08:16:

RB>> As I mentioned, unsolicited calls are illegal in Germany.

ml> so that sounds like i can't just look up your number and give you a
ml> ring out of the blue and having never done it before or even asked...

Don't be funny ;-) Private calls are never a problem, but if you're selling
things, doing a survey for some institute or company, or similar stuff (trying
to get you to vote for someone would definitely be included), you're breaking
German law.

RB>> When the origin phone number has been suppressed, the penalty is
RB>> greater (the caller will not only be fined and warned, but will lose
RB>> his phone connection as well) - but of course it's also more
RB>> difficult to get the details of who's calling to be able to file a
RB>> complaint.

ml> no caller-id?

That's right. It can be suppressed so that you don't see it at the receiving
end (in the case of ISDN phones and probably also DSL phones as well as cell
phones). Which is OK for private calls - except that many people won't accept
calls from phones with a suppressed caller-id. But this doesn't apply when you
use analog phones, like I do (when I went to ISDN I didn't want to throw all my
analog phones away, and so I use an A/D converter (what the Germans call a
"TK-Anlage", not sure of the name in English). It hooks up to the ISDN line of
the splitter, which in turn is hooked up to the DSL line. It's harder to
describe than to hook it up.

ml> we can easily file complaints over here and we likely never do know
ml> who they are filed against... all we need to do is hit something like
ml> *86 or some such and the call is automatically logged with the
ml> telco... then within 24 hours we need to call the telco and confirm
ml> that we did file the report... after that, it is out of our hands and
ml> into the courts...

No, we unfortunately don't have that option. If something like this happens and
you have no caller-id (the caller telephone number), you just have to talk to
whoever it is and find out who they're representing to file a complaint. And
the complaint isn't with the telco, but with the regulation authority (there's
a special government office that is responsible for approving prices,
increases, conditions and preventing misuse.

Your long story about the "fishing calls" would get the culprit into very hot
water here.

Seems to me your advantage is the automatic logging of abuse and the
disadvantage is that the report goes to the telco and not to a neutral
(superior) authority that can act whether your telco would want that or not.

RB>> For the extra-cautious, there are systems that will automatically
RB>> reject any calls where the origin phone number is suppressed. But
RB>> normally they aren't required.

ml> if i'm reading this correctly, that's built into our codes... just
ml> like setting call-forwarding and call-blocking, i think this is called
ml> call-rejecting...

Sounds like the same thing. You can turn it on or off, I think... I've never
really investigated this because I use an analog phone system with analog
phones here, and they don't show the number of the caller anyway.

RB>> And anyone using a "computerized dialer" for unsolicited calls might
RB>> even get more than a fine. Such stuff is unknown here.

ml> it was unknown over here until it got quite flagrant... there might be
ml> some use of it over there but it is used in a different manner than
ml> here... we have schools using them to send important notices to
ml> parents and you can sign up for the weather groups of your favorite TV
ml> station to notify you of bad or severe weather in your area...
ml> churches also use them to notify folks of important notices or
ml> gatherings or cancellations...

No, we have nothing at all like that here. It might be legal if you voluntarily
signed up for it, but I've never heard of anything like you describe. Since so
many people have Internet here, it's more usual to send an email (with CCs as
necessary).

Cheers, Bob

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