SPAIN’S measures to regulate spam marketing phone calls takes another turn from October 17 when all commercial calls trying to sell products and services will have to use a 400 prefix.
The new rule will allow people to know in advance that it is a commercial call, allowing them to reject it.
A missed call starting with 400 will not be able to dialled back.
READ MORE: Spain to ban nuisance spam calls by companies
The tougher measures also mean that spam calls not starting the mandatory prefix can be reported to authorities.
The aim is to put an end to a long-standing and annoying practice where people get called from conventional numbers, including mobile phones, which makes it difficult to work out whether it is a personal call or one from somebody hawking a product.
The Minister for Digital Transformation and Public Function, Oscar Lopez, said: “We have all endured calls from a mobile phone that we have picked up thinking it was a family member or a friend and then it ended up being a business call.”
READ MORE: Spain to crack down on phone scammers -here’s how
“From October, we will all be able to identify if it is commercial,” he added.
Lopez also praised ‘the collaboration, effort and work of the telephone companies that are helping the Government and the Ministry’ both in the latest measure and in enforcing the Anti-Telephone Scam Plan.
“We have managed to block 192 million calls and 17 million texts since its approval in March last year,” he added.
Although commercial calls are currently prevented from being made from mobile numbers, offers are still coming in from numbers starting with six.
The plan also includes new measures against fraud that impersonates banks, electricity companies and other companies.
From September, texts sent from company numbers that are not registered in the database run by the National Commission on Markets and Competition (CNMC) will also be blocked.
Click here to read more Spain News from The Olive Press.
