Frustrated consumers want companies to mute tele-sales calls

Homechoice, Cartrack, DStv, Old Mutual, Discovery Insure and Iwyze are some of the companies that consumers have flagged for allegedly harassing and bombarding them with tele-sales calls for products they don’t want. 

On Friday, Cartrack suspended services of its telemarketing company after Sowetan shared with the car tracing company the frustrations of consumers who had taken to social media to tell stories of feeling harassed and abused by the company.

“Thanks for bringing this behaviour to our attention. We are investigating the complaint and in good faith have suspended doing business with this third-party service provider until we fully understand their modus operandi,” said Lauren Human, Cartrack’s director of corporate affairs.

A Joburg businesswoman took her frustrations to X last week.

The screenshot of her call log revealed that she was called by Cartrack 18 times between July 10 and August 13. On average, Cartrack called her between three and four times a day using an 021 number with the same 020 middle digits but the last four numbers would vary.

Her post elicited a flurry of responses with other consumers sharing their screenshots of the calls they had been receiving daily, saying blocking them was proving useless.

“Every single day I’m blocking and they call again literally a minute later with a different variation,” said the user.

The businesswoman, who asked to remain anonymous, said she started getting calls from them in March.

“It would be a bot asking me to press some buttons. I’d just drop the call.

“This went on until the calls became more frequent and on average I’d get three calls which affect me as a businesswoman because I sometimes assume it’s a call from a client of mine. It’s annoying.

“Our phones are being hounded by these people. We are abused and I’m sure this type of rogue marketing doesn’t happen in other countries,” said the businesswoman.

She said she had to change her company’s telephone number, which starts with 087 to an 011 number because her clients, who had also been annoyed by telemarketers, would sometimes ignore her calls assuming they were being hounded.

“Government must enforce the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) and restrict telemarketers to one call to one consumer a day,” she said.

POPIA is the legislation that aims to protect personal information processed by public and private bodies.

The Information Regulator’s Nomzamo Zondi said they had noticed a potential collision between service providers and credit bureaus, where customer information shared between them ends up at the hands of lead agencies (telemarketers). 

Zondi said the regulator said it was in the process of issuing enforcement notices to 14 companies for violating POPIA’s direct marketing provisions.

Karabo Magagane, a consumer from North West, said she gets many calls from a cellphone company and Discovery Insure and sometimes the calls would be after working hours.

She said she felt harassed because despite telling them every day that she didn’t want them to call, they called anyway.

“This thing is also frustrating because identity theft is on the rise and this means our information can be easily accessed and we are not protected,” said Magagane.

She said to limit the influx of unsolicited direct marketing calls, she had to download an app that rejects unsaved numbers.

Homechoice, DStv, Discovery and Old Mutual also topped the list of companies whose sales calls rub consumers the wrong way.

Old Mutual and DStv denied harassing consumers, saying they have conducted their businesses fairly and adhered to POPIA.

“We do not participate in unsolicited ‘cold calling’, nor have we increased our direct marketing efforts with our third-party lead providers. We take customer privacy seriously and ensure that all our direct marketing providers are compliant with POPIA, and consent is obtained before anyone is contacted by us. Customers have the option to opt in or out of receiving direct marketing calls through our providers,” said Old Mutual.

Itumeleng Thulare from MultiChoice said they took their customer privacy seriously and collected only the necessary data for auditing across their business.

“We also use Do Not Contact Lists and the Direct Marketing Association of SA opt-out database to respect customer preferences. We do not use automated calling systems. We recommend that any customer who would like to opt out of communications registers with DMASA,” said Thulare.

Homechoice did not respond to emails Sowetan sent to them on Thursday and neither did Discovery’s Nthabiseng Chapeshamano.

 Direct Marketing Association of SA (DMASA) set up its first DNC in 2006, as a service to help consumers opt-out of receiving direct marketing communications.

According to DMASA spokesperson Khulie Mdhluli, about 500,000 consumers have registered for the opt-out.

“This registry allows consumers to opt out of direct marketing in general or in respect of a particular supplier of the DMASA,” she said. – Additional reporting by Herman Moloi