Report unauthorized telephone advertising
Description
The term "telephone advertising", or "cold call", refers to calls that are made with the purpose of selling you goods or offering you services without your prior consent to the call. Subscriptions or contracts are often advertised. Often, the aim is to induce the called party to conclude a contract during the telephone call. Calls claiming to be exclusively for the purpose of market or opinion research may turn into advertising calls if, in the further course of the call, the caller proceeds to highlight certain products/goods or services of certain companies Advertising calls also remain unauthorized if the caller prevents his or her telephone number from being displayed in your device (so-called caller ID suppression) or causes a telephone number not assigned to him or her to be displayed in your device (so-called setting up of telephone numbers).
If you receive unauthorized advertising calls, you can file a complaint with the Federal Network Agency. The authority can prosecute the calls as administrative offenses and impose fines or issue warnings.
What is not unauthorized telephone advertising?
- "Phishing calls": do not count as solicitation calls, even if company names or products are mentioned. In "phishing calls", tricksters try to obtain sensitive personal data, e.g. your passwords or bank details. The calls are therefore not intended to promote or sell products, but to obtain information about you. Because such calls are often related to criminal offenses, you should file a criminal complaint with the police if you receive such calls.
- Calls made solely for the purpose of market research or opinion polling are not considered to be telephone canvassing.calls which have as their subject (election) canvassing for political parties.
- You are a consumer, i.e. a person who is neither a commercial nor a self-employed professional.
- There is unauthorized telephone advertising, i.e. goods (products) or services were advertised in a telephone call made to you and you did not give the advertising company consent for the call or did give such consent but revoked it before the advertising call.
The Federal Network Agency is usually notified promptly of a complaint it has received.
- Forms: Notification of receipt of unauthorized telephone advertising
- Online procedure possible: yes
- Written form required: no
- Personal appearance required: no (but see below)
You can file your complaint online or by mail.
If you wish to file the complaint online:
- Go to the Federal Network Agency's Internet site and follow the instructions.
- You should be able to provide the following information about the unauthorized advertising call:
- Your personal data, date and time of the call, if possible the phone number shown in the display of your phone.
- The name of the caller or company and the products and/or services that were advertised over the phone.
- Information on whether you gave your consent to be advertised by telephone before the call.
- Information as to whether you later revoked your consent and were nevertheless called.
- A description of the content and course of the call that is as precise as possible.
- The Federal Network Agency will examine the facts on which your complaint is based.
- You may be considered as a witness in the further course of the fine proceedings.
- You will receive an acknowledgement of receipt of your complaint.
- As a rule, you will not receive separate notification of the outcome of the fine proceedings.
- The Federal Network Agency publishes a list of measures on the Internet from which, among other things, the fines it sets can be found.
If you wish to submit the complaint by mail:
- Download the form online and print it out.
- Fill out the form.
- Send the completed form to the Federal Network Agency by mail, fax or e-mail.
- You can also submit the complaint informally by e-mail or in writing as a letter or fax.
- The Federal Network Agency will examine the facts underlying your complaint.
- As a rule, you will not receive any separate notification of the outcome of the fine proceedings.
- The Federal Network Agency publishes a list of measures on the Internet from which, among other things, the fines it sets can be found.
The complainants are eligible as witnesses in the event of fine proceedings following the complaint and may be summoned in person for an oral hearing.
Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy
14.08.2018
The text was automatically translated based on the German content.
