02076197597

1. It isn't cold calling. Your original donation came with terms and conditions permitting the charity or an organisation acting on their behalf to contact you in the future.
2. These companies do not "get paid if they sign you up", as you put it. No amount of donations ever goes directly to the third party. They are invested in from a pre-allocated budget set aside by all charities for various forms of fundraising - including this. Whether you donate directly or not, it will not have an impact on the charities decision to use these companies, unless they are particularly bad at what they've been asked to do. And if you you were sincere about wanting to support the charity but simply refused this method out of principle, the truth is you've cost the charity money on a fruitless phone call. I trust you went online and made the donation regardless? Hmm.

Instead of getting all irate about a couple of phone calls that you've no doubt handled poorly, why don't you do yourself a favor and instead of joining the queue of dimwits on this site, actually find out about the situation? There are many posts here from people who can explain these companies place within the charity sector far better than I ever could, and I would encourage you to seek them out. You would have spent less time by politely asking to be taken off the calling list than by typing up your frustrations online.

thank you everyone as this number keeps calling my mobile ad before I can answer the call they hang up! I recently donated a £5 to an appeal on tv for water to vunerable children, I think as you say they are now hounding me for another donation but I will still avoid the call but wish I had never donated in the first place as I did not ask them to use my number!

These people a a ruddy nuisance, phoning me every day. 1st time said they were UNICEF! Boils down to harrasment. I have my phone on silent so don't hear th call. Now recognise number so just decline it

Actually, the terms and conditions did not appear till one had already donated. A text was sent by return thanking and that they would contact in the future! I do regret bothering

Here is what you do:-

Txt NO CALL TO 70007

I am constantly plagued with calls from this number, who is it ?

More idiots. Pick up your phone and ask to be taken off the calling list. It'll take you thirty seconds.

I think you are shooting yourself in the foot.
The sooner the better!

keeps pestering my mobile, ever since giving donation to unicef. puts you off from donating

Calls started after making donation to BBC red nose

Just had a call from this number ... Scope charity which I donated to a few years ago, told them I couldn't help as have had to stop all my charity work etc and they still wouldn't shut up even when I said my baby is due tomorrow so have more important things going on at the moment. Feel bad about hanging up on them but NO MEANS NO!!

I do not accept charity calls & I told them not to call me but they still call

Donated by text the other day to Unicef and I suspect now they are ringing my mobile and leaving no message!
All it does is teach me not to donate by text, so they have shot themselves and others in the foot!!
PS just realised that there were 31 pages in this post and I had only read page 1 so I thought nobody had been bothered since 2010!!
Have now texted NO CALL to 70007--will wait and see what happens!

I had a few times this number calling me rcently. as i was abroad, i did not answer. Now I know that i should not waste my time by answering them. thanks

Yes I have been harrassed by these people.  Recently, at the beginning of March,  on British TV, there was an appeal by Unicef for blankets for the children of Syria.  I texted the number 5 times to donate 5 blankets.  A man rang on my number and started going on and I told him that if I wanted to know more about Unicef I would look at their website.  Since then I have had about 11 calls from them, sometimes twice a day.  Like the person below I rang the number below and left the message that he or she mentioned.  However I have still had 4 calls since then.  Grrrr!  It is enough to put you off supporting charities, what with chuggers in the street and nuisance phone calls.  My husband and I already support 2 charities.

You say our original donation came with terms and conditions, where were these mentioned on the TV ads?   I am in complete agreement with the other people who are annoyed that because they were generous enough to make donations to Unicef by text, they are now being harrassed by what amounts to silent phone calls... which as they quite rightly say quite often have rung off by the time you get to answer them.  I made donations to Comic Relief by text as well and have not been harrassed to death.  My husband has complained on my behalf to Unicef directly about this.  Wont be donating anything else to Unicef in this manner.

Good reporting them to the ICO. The criminal fraudsters like Anthony Simister who run scams like to plant stooges on these forums to discourage honest folk from contacting the ICO or Ofcom. Ignore them. Data criminals don't want the hassle, bad publicity or fines, and have big payoffs to make to stay in business. Pay them back with hassle.  I've bookmarked the ICO complaint form and report each and every call now via the form on www.ico.gov.uk : https://www.snapsurveys.com/swh/surveylogin.asp?k=134674895144

Here's the latest fine for a dodgy company caught with its trousers down and breaking the law:

http://www.ico.gov.uk/news/latest_news/2013.aspx

News release: 20 March 2013

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has served a monetary penalty of £90,000 to a company that has blighted the public with thousands of unwanted marketing calls.

DM Design, based in Glasgow, has been the subject of nearly 2,000 complaints to the ICO and the Telephone Preference Service (TPS). The company consistently failed to check whether individuals had opted out of receiving marketing calls – in clear breach of the law - and responded to just a handful of the complaints received.

In one instance an employee refused to remove a complainant’s details from the company’s system and instead threatened to “continue to call at more inconvenient times like Sunday lunchtime”.

The monetary penalty is the first the ICO has issued for a serious breach of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) relating to live marketing calls. This latest penalty comes after the joint owners of a company, which was responsible for sending hundreds of thousands of spam texts, received penalties totalling £440,000 in November last year.

The ICO has informed two more companies that it is intending to impose significant penalties over breaches of the law, with a final decision likely in the coming weeks. A further ten companies are subject to ongoing investigation for cold-calling and sending spam text messages.

Information Commissioner, Christopher Graham, said:

“Today’s action sends out a clear message to the marketing industry that this menace will not be tolerated. This company showed a clear disregard for the law and a lamentable attitude toward the people whose day they were disturbing. This is not good enough.

“This fine will not be an isolated penalty. We know other companies are showing a similar disregard for the law and we’ve every intention of taking further enforcement action against companies that continue to bombard people with unlawful marketing texts and calls.

“All of this work has been made possible thanks to the information we are receiving from the public, which has assisted our investigation team in identifying the companies making these calls.”

View a copy of the DM Design monetary penalty notice

The ICO and OFCOM, who are responsible for regulating silent calls, work closely together and will be publishing an open letter to the marketing industry reminding companies that they must comply with the legal and regulatory measures in place. Failure to do so will lead to enforcement action, with the ICO able to issue penalties of up to £500,000 for serious breaches of the PECR, and OFCOM having the power to issue penalties of up to £2,000,000 over breaches of rules linked to abandoned and silent calls.

The ICO has setup a online reporting tool which people can use to send us the details of any unwanted marketing texts and calls. View the reporting tool, which has already received nearly 140,000 responses since it was setup in March last year.



Notes to Editors

1. The Information Commissioner’s Office upholds information rights in the public interest, promoting openness by public bodies and data privacy for individuals.

2. The ICO has specific responsibilities set out in the Data Protection Act 1998, the Freedom of Information Act 2000, Environmental Information Regulations 2004 and Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003.

3. The ICO is on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, and produces a monthly e-newsletter.

4. The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 support the Data Protection Act by regulating the use of electronic communications, including live and automated marketing calls and marketing text messages. The ICO has the power to issue monetary penalties up to £500,000 for serious breaches of the regulations.

5. OFCOM is responsible for regulating abandoned and silent calls under the Communications Act 2003. OFCOM has the power to serve persistent offenders with financial penalties up to £2,000,000 pounds.

Its from a 3rd Party Call Centre calling on behalf of a charity. They are legit. The charity asks them to call and ask people if they would sign up to a regular direct debit contribution.
They are very polite and there is no pressure to do so, they simply ask!

However what I would say is that if you, as so many of you are doing, don't answer the call and whine about them continuing to call you again - how are they supposed to know you don't want them to call you! Are they mind readers? Just pick up and politely ask them to take you off the list. They'll do so with politeness and a have a good day.

Its a registered company called Listen. They are - of all the company's of their kind - the best in the industry. So count yourselves lucky your being called by them, who adhere to very strict code of conduct as opposed to others who have no problem trying to pressure you into doing it!

Hope this answers some questions

I get lots if calls from this number even though I'm signed up to the TPS. Gets very annoying when you are a shift worker.

I've been getting these calls all week. I would ask them to stop calling but the line is silent when I pick it up - highly annoying!