NINE OUT OF TEN Effectiveness of actions to reduce harm from nuisance calls in Scotland As part of A Response to Scotland’s Nuisance Calls Commission – An Action Plan, the Scottish Government commissioned this research to analyse the impact of actions set out there and to examine the outcomes of past interventions. This was carried out by Antelope Consulting. Antelope Consulting [email protected] http://www.antelope.org.uk TheScottishGovernment @ScotGov March 2018 www.gov.scot Effectiveness of actions to reduce harm from nuisance calls in Scotland As part of A Response to Scotland’s Nuisance Calls Commission – An Action Plan, the Scottish Government commissioned this research to analyse the impact of actions set out there and to examine the outcomes of past interventions. This was carried out by Antelope Consulting. Antelope Consulting [email protected] http://www.antelope.org.uk January 2018 Dedication This report is dedicated to the memory of our good colleague and friend Brian Smith of Angus Trading Standards. He fought valiantly against nuisance calls in Angus, and supported the commissioning and carrying out of this study, but left us far too soon. Acknowledgements Too many people have helped with producing this report to thank everyone individually. Members of staff at both ICO and Ofcom were generous with their time, and some network operators in the Nuisance Calls Memorandum of Understanding group also made significant inputs. In Scotland, Trading Standards and Police staff were particularly supportive. Independent experts also made valuable comments on the Working Paper that underlies part of this report. We thank all these and many others, not forgetting the Scottish Government who commissioned the work. Responsibility for views expressed, errors and omissions remains with us. We will be pleased to hear from any interested reader. Claire Milne [email protected] Contents Abbreviations ............................................................................................................... 8 Executive summary ..................................................................................................... 9 1 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 13 2 The situation in the UK ...................................................................................... 16 2.1 Reducing the number of nuisance calls made to UK recipients ................ 16 2.2 Preventing recipients from receiving nuisance calls made to them........... 22 2.3 Minimising harm caused by nuisance calls received ................................ 31 2.4 Summary of possible effectiveness of actions .......................................... 41 3 The situation in Scotland ................................................................................... 43 3.1 Introduction ............................................................................................... 43 3.2 Nuisance calls to Scotland compared with the rest of the UK ................... 44 3.3 Call centres in Scotland ............................................................................ 48 3.4 Energy efficiency schemes in Scotland .................................................... 49 3.5 Legal and organisational features of Scotland .......................................... 50 3.6 Behaviour and characteristics of Scottish consumers ............................... 53 3.7 Expected effectiveness of actions in Scottish Nuisance Call Action Plan . 54 4 Future monitoring of effectiveness of actions .................................................... 57 4.1 Measuring the underlying level of nuisance calls ...................................... 59 4.2 Measuring nuisance calls received ........................................................... 59 4.3 Measuring consumer harm resulting from nuisance calls ......................... 62 5 Conclusions and recommendations .................................................................. 67 5.1 Conclusions .............................................................................................. 67 5.2 Recommendations .................................................................................... 68 Annex A What is a nuisance call? ........................................................................... 72 A.1 Terminology .............................................................................................. 72 A.2 Estimates of the number of calls of each type .......................................... 72 Annex B Regulatory actions .................................................................................... 76 B.1 The institutional and legal framework ....................................................... 76 B.2 Regulation in practice ............................................................................... 79 Annex C Estimates of the level of nuisance calling ................................................. 86 C.1 Summary .................................................................................................. 86 C.2 Estimation techniques ............................................................................... 86 C.3 The relative contributions of landline and mobile calls .............................. 90 Annex D Independent factors influencing future levels of nuisance calls ................ 91 3 Annex E Evidence on consumer attitudes to nuisance calls ................................... 93 Annex F Evidence on vulnerable consumers and telephone scams ....................... 96 F.1 Summary tables ........................................................................................ 96 F.2 Groups targeted by scams ........................................................................ 97 F.3 Use of telephone for scamming ................................................................ 98 F.4 National statistics and reporting ................................................................ 99 F.5 Amounts lost to scam calls ....................................................................... 99 F.6 Consumer behaviour on receiving a scam call ....................................... 102 F.7 Overall incidence of scam calls............................................................... 103 F.8 Information from North America .............................................................. 104 Annex G Debt collection guidelines ....................................................................... 105 G.1 Debt Collection Guidance: OFT664rev ................................................... 105 G.2 Sample letter provided by StepChange Debt Charity ............................. 105 G.3 Guidelines focusing on specific reasons for vulnerability ........................ 106 Annex H Comparison of UK data from Ofcom and trueCall ................................... 107 H.1 Ofcom surveys ........................................................................................ 107 H.2 The proportion of people receiving nuisance calls .................................. 107 H.3 The frequency of nuisance calls ............................................................. 109 H.4 Comparisons between sources of data ................................................... 111 Annex I Nuisance call complaints systems .......................................................... 114 Annex J Analysis of trueCall data for Scotland ..................................................... 117 J.1 Introduction ............................................................................................. 117 J.2 Nuisance calls into the UK and Scotland ................................................ 118 J.3 Nuisance calls to standard trueCall users in Scotland and rest of UK .... 120 J.4 Nuisance calls received by standard and vulnerable trueCall users in Scotland .......................................................................................................... 126 J.5 Investigation of a peak in nuisance calls ................................................. 130 J.6 Investigation of the calling pattern for one particular calling number ...... 131 Annex K Analysis of Ofcom data for Scotland ....................................................... 133 K.1 Proportion of people receiving nuisance calls ......................................... 133 K.2 The frequency of nuisance calls ............................................................. 136 Annex L Telephone area codes and local authority areas in Scotland ................. 140 L.1 Telephone area codes ............................................................................ 140 L.2 TPS and census data ............................................................................. 141 L.3 The mapping ........................................................................................... 141 4 Figure 1 Nuisance calls complaints trends ............................................................................... 14 Figure 2 Key features of selected data sources ....................................................................... 15 Figure 3 Numbers of nuisance calls received in four weeks, 2013-2017 ................................. 16 Figure 4 TPS registrations, 2016-2017 ..................................................................................... 18 Figure 5 TPS registrations of mobile numbers, 2016-2017 ...................................................... 18 Figure 6 Classes of relevant call suppression technology .......................................................