Start by ignoring the law - I know, it's your job to imagine that the law applies to everyone - but no-one else in this nasty little interaction considers themselves bound by the law and consider that there are four parties here: you, the sales company, the phone company, and the regulator.
Start by considering the pivotal player, the phone company.
They measure who is most important to them: an individual or small company who uses the phone a bit, or an on-the-phone-all-day telesales company who pay them tens of thousands of pounds in call charges every fiscal quarter.
Who do you think matters more?
The telecomms providers do not give a toss about you. And no, you're not a part of a wider 'public' because there's no way that you will ever aggregate your leverage as a collective stream of revenue that far exceeds the telesales income. You are small and isolated and you do not matter.
There is, in theory, a 'public interest' but the telecomms regulator (and the data protection registrar) who are in theory our appointed representatives have shown a total lack of interest in standing up for our rights against intrusive interruptions from the marketers and salesmen and even - on occasions - outright fraudsters. Bluntly, there is no such thing as 'the public' - just lots of little people who do not matter and a privileged élite of profitable telesales fee-payers.
I will point out that really big companies - big enough to negotiate their contracts, and even bigger users of their telecomms than tele-salesmen - are totally, utterly we'll-sack-you-if-you-call-them off-limits to the sales reps. Some customers are more valuable to the telecomms providers than a little firm of lawyers in a market town.
So what can you actually do?
Log the calls. Look up the definition of 'harassment' and contact the police when (or if) the frequency of calls exceed the threshold. Get your local authority's Trading Standards office involved, because the Telesales Rep's refusal to identify themselves and the company they represent is something that the TSO can and will regard as actionable - remember, this is a local authority employee who has your interests in mind, not a toothless regulator who is to all intents and purposes a servant of a telecomms giant who profits from having you called all day by salesmen.
Finally, capture anything that can be classified as abusive, as misrepresentation, or fraudulent. That, and the charge of harassment, are the means to get the telesales company disconnected and - if the telecomms provider try to shield them by (say) withholding the number - you have an even chance of naming them as accessories, or 'for aiding and abetting', with the threat of having named executives or managers handcuffed and led out of the building to face criminal charges.
You need damned unpleasant threats to make any headway against your telecomms monopolist and their most profitable customers. In all likelihood, the best you'll get is some assurance that they'll never phone you again, and the certain knowledge that they will carry on abusing and harassing (or even actively deceiving and defrauding) everyone else who ever picks up the telephone during the working day. And there will still be companies, new to the market - or reformed from older players who dissolved when too many people got effective Do-Not-Call orders - who will call you in the knowledge that it's still a profitable strategy until you tell them to stop.
Yes, I've worked in this industry. I'm not proud of it.
I am, of course, entirely unqualified to offer advice on any legal matter and you should consider this a personal opinion that a reasonable person would find interesting in a social conversation but in no wise any substitute for seeking the advice of a solicitor or barrister.
no subject
Start by ignoring the law - I know, it's your job to imagine that the law applies to everyone - but no-one else in this nasty little interaction considers themselves bound by the law and consider that there are four parties here: you, the sales company, the phone company, and the regulator.
Start by considering the pivotal player, the phone company.
They measure who is most important to them: an individual or small company who uses the phone a bit, or an on-the-phone-all-day telesales company who pay them tens of thousands of pounds in call charges every fiscal quarter.
Who do you think matters more?
The telecomms providers do not give a toss about you. And no, you're not a part of a wider 'public' because there's no way that you will ever aggregate your leverage as a collective stream of revenue that far exceeds the telesales income. You are small and isolated and you do not matter.
There is, in theory, a 'public interest' but the telecomms regulator (and the data protection registrar) who are in theory our appointed representatives have shown a total lack of interest in standing up for our rights against intrusive interruptions from the marketers and salesmen and even - on occasions - outright fraudsters. Bluntly, there is no such thing as 'the public' - just lots of little people who do not matter and a privileged élite of profitable telesales fee-payers.
I will point out that really big companies - big enough to negotiate their contracts, and even bigger users of their telecomms than tele-salesmen - are totally, utterly we'll-sack-you-if-you-call-them off-limits to the sales reps. Some customers are more valuable to the telecomms providers than a little firm of lawyers in a market town.
So what can you actually do?
Log the calls. Look up the definition of 'harassment' and contact the police when (or if) the frequency of calls exceed the threshold. Get your local authority's Trading Standards office involved, because the Telesales Rep's refusal to identify themselves and the company they represent is something that the TSO can and will regard as actionable - remember, this is a local authority employee who has your interests in mind, not a toothless regulator who is to all intents and purposes a servant of a telecomms giant who profits from having you called all day by salesmen.
Finally, capture anything that can be classified as abusive, as misrepresentation, or fraudulent. That, and the charge of harassment, are the means to get the telesales company disconnected and - if the telecomms provider try to shield them by (say) withholding the number - you have an even chance of naming them as accessories, or 'for aiding and abetting', with the threat of having named executives or managers handcuffed and led out of the building to face criminal charges.
You need damned unpleasant threats to make any headway against your telecomms monopolist and their most profitable customers. In all likelihood, the best you'll get is some assurance that they'll never phone you again, and the certain knowledge that they will carry on abusing and harassing (or even actively deceiving and defrauding) everyone else who ever picks up the telephone during the working day. And there will still be companies, new to the market - or reformed from older players who dissolved when too many people got effective Do-Not-Call orders - who will call you in the knowledge that it's still a profitable strategy until you tell them to stop.
Yes, I've worked in this industry. I'm not proud of it.
I am, of course, entirely unqualified to offer advice on any legal matter and you should consider this a personal opinion that a reasonable person would find interesting in a social conversation but in no wise any substitute for seeking the advice of a solicitor or barrister.