“While the telephone canvassing has increased with the health crisis, we would expect the government to use its prerogative to establish intransigent rules to ensure the peace of consumers. “ The thinly veiled criticism of twelve consumer associations, published in a press release Wednesday, May 5, follows a draft government decree on telephone canvassing, proposed for consultation to the National Consumer Council, of which they are members.
ADEIC, AFOC, ALLDC, CSF, CNAFAL, CNAFC, CLCV, Families of France, Rural families, INDECOSA-CGT, UFC-Que Choisir and UNAF denounce a project “Which leads to legitimize the harassment to which consumers are victims”, “especially the most vulnerable”, by authorizing in particular “Slots of more than fifty calling hours per week, over six days”. “From Monday to Friday, prospecting will be authorized from 9 am to 7 pm and from 10 am to 6 pm on Saturday, with only one and two hours of respite respectively at noon”, they add.
Further calls allowed despite consumer refusal
Another point of alert: the possibility of “The direct seller of the same company [d’]call up to four times in total during the same month, ie once a week ” a person who would have refused from the first call the commercial proposal.
“This tolerance is all the more unacceptable as it constitutes an almost blank check for professionals, such as those in the supply of energy or household work, which still escape any sectoral framework”, castigate these twelve associations.
They ask “The complete rewrite of the draft decree” government so that the time slots during which canvassing is authorized are reduced ” drastically “. And that is generalized “The right of consumers who decline a commercial proposition not to be recalled”, which had been “Obtained by law on the insurance sector”.
In France, at present, everyone can be canvassed, unless they have entered their number in the Bloctel file, a service set up in mid-2016 which theoretically allows you to no longer be disturbed by unwanted calls. Operators have a legal obligation to filter the numbers of their files registered with Bloctel, but not all of them do so, despite the heavy fines incurred.
In January 2020, a petition against this canvassing was launched by these same associations. She then gathered 450,000 signatures in seven months.