Bazaar In Your Ear

t's a national epidemic no one quite knows how to hang up on. Eight months running of a new regime that promised to tackle unsolicited phone calls from telemarketing firms, and all it seems to have spawned is a joke factory that churns out innovative ways to answer that intrusive call. Like, yes, I do want that personal loan; about Rs 20 crore will do just fine.

But it is, alas, no joking matter. Wherever you are—at office, at home, in a cinema hall, even abroad—chances are that you have and will get a call from someone trying to sell a personal loan, a credit card with the first-year fees waived, or a bank account. Or it could be an SMS at 2 am urging you to save power bills by 35 per cent, and 15 more during the day selling holidays, slimming pills, premium cellphone numbers and more.

Persistent, intrusive and even expensive for those on roaming, these calls and SMSes also seem inevitable. With mobile subscriber growth galloping in India, your phone number has become the biggest marketing field for companies, banks and just about everyone who has something to sell. It's the easiest way to reach consumers, and they can do nothing—well, almost nothing—to stop the march of the marketing machine.

A window of redressal opened up late last year when telecom regulator TRAI set up the National Do Not Call (DNC) registry. It seemed oh-so-simple: consumers would sign up for DNC, and registered telemarketing firms would not call them. Errant firms would be fined. Apart from operators, a toll-free number—1909—was put in place for consumers to register their complaints. Going by the rules, the calls and messages should have stopped completely in 45 days' time. For millions of subscribers, they didn't. DNC has been far from successful as even those who register continue to get unsolicited calls and messages.

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• Registered subscribers continue to get calls, no feedback on their complaints
  
• DNC helpline difficult to get through, registration through website cumbersome
  
• TRAI empowered to impose financial sanctions directly against telecom companies
  
• Guidelines to define non-compliance, time-bound roadmap in the works
  
• Legislation may be the only answer, as regulation has not worked

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The phone companies squarely put the blame on errant telemarketing firms. Says a Bharti-Airtel spokesperson: "In fact, of complaints received for Airtel numbers, over 60 per cent pertain to agencies that haven't yet registered themselves. Others who've registered do not seem to be adhering to the norms stipulated for them." Bharti says 3.9 million of its customers have registered for DNC. Another large player—Reliance Communications—didn't respond to Outlook's queries.

Also, the quantum of penalty—a mere Rs 500 for the first offence and Rs 1,000 for subsequent calls—is so low that it is no deterrent for telemarketers. Says Hiranandani: "Till they (TRAI) take stern steps and back up their bark with bite, nothing will happen." Mishra says TRAI was in favour of increasing the penalties to Rs 5,000 and Rs 10,000 but there were problems in its execution. As the penalties are billed to the defaulting numbers as tariff, they become part of telcos' revenue. And since they pay 8 per cent to the government as revenue share, they are unwilling to increase their exposure.

As of now, there is no respite for consumers from pesky calls and SMSes. Says Singhal: "My calls and messages have actually increased after registering and making complaints." TRAI feels the system needs to be tightened to make it foolproof and effective. It issued a recent order under which it would hold telecom service providers responsible and issue financial sanctions against them.

Obviously, the telcos are unhappy about this. Says T.V. Ramachandran, director general, Cellular Operators' Association of India: "There is no way to force fly-by-night telemarketers to comply. Even in the US, which was one of the first countries to put such a system in place, compliance is not 100 per cent. But to hold us responsible is not fair as we are only a channel these telemarketers use." Vodafone's Nagpal agrees: "Why impose a fine on the operator if some subscriber telemarketer falters? Just because we provided the connection, why should we be fined? Why shoot the messenger here?"

Given the relatively small numbers—and the absence of any tangible movement on DNC—it's no surprise that established telemarketing companies are unruffled by, even defiant about the basic concept. Says Arvind Rao, CEO, OnMobile Global, "Stopping it completely is wrong, even for those who have registered...it should be directed rather than being at random."

So, what does the poor consumer do now? While subscribers can go to consumer forums with their complaints, it all goes back to either the telcos, or TRAI. Says Roopa Vajpeyi, consumer activist and editor, Consumer Voice magazine: "We do get such complaints from consumers...we are also talking to telecom companies to register with us so that we can redirect such complaints to them. " It's really quite a mess.

Now, to ensure results and compliance, TRAI is issuing fresh guidelines for telecom companies, specifying a time-frame within which subscribers should be given feedback on the progress of their complaints. Will that work, given that previous measures have met with less than limited success? Legislation by the government is the way out, but till that happens, those calls will keep coming.