Do Not Call sign-up begins for public

Channel NewsAsia, 2 Dec 2013

Consumers who do not wish to receive telemarketing messages can register their Singapore telephone numbers with the Do Not Call (DNC) Registry from Monday (Dec 2).

The service is free, and consumers can get their phone numbers included in any or all of the three DNC registers -- for voice calls, text messages and faxes.

As of 6pm on Monday, the watchdog body, the Personal Data Protection Commission (PDPC) of Singapore, has registered more than 67,000 unique numbers.

Consumers can register their phone numbers at the DNC website, through SMS or at a toll-free phone number.

Telemarketers must check against the registry before making a sales pitch.

Some companies expect the new regulations to have an impact on their business.

Propnex’s chief executive officer Mohd Ismail said: "Telemarketing is seen as a low cost yet effective reach out. So with the new regulations starting, what we have to do here is we have to put a lot more things in place, due diligence, and also to ensure my sales people don't go into the problems of not following regulations."

Propnex will be conducting training sessions next week for more than 2,000 of its agents to ensure they understand and comply with the changes.

To help relieve the cost burden for agents, the company also intends to purchase 1,000,000 credits for searches on telephone numbers.

Mr Mohd Ismail said: "When the company buys on a huge quantity, we enjoy a 50 per cent discount, because when any of these new regulations come about, we do not want our agents or sales people to be burdened by high costs."

Chris International’s director Chris Koh said: "Administratively, I will admit there is a bit of work now to clean that list that I have or to wash that list. Cost wise, there is an additional cost for us in the industry."

However, this may be a boon for other companies.

Ann Consulting’s chief consultant Mark You said: "We expect to have more jobs; the reason is we do a one-stop service for our customers. We can wash (the data) on behalf (of our customers) and then send on behalf (of them too), meaning our customers do not need to do anything. They just need to send us the data within 24 hours, so that we can wash and send for them."

Those who register their phone numbers with the DNC Registry from Monday till July 2, 2014 may still receive telemarketing messages for up to 60 days after registration.

This is to give organisations time to familiarise themselves with the new requirements.

Consumers have expressed concerns that companies may use this period to conduct mass telemarketing exercise.

Contact Centre Association of Singapore’s vice chairman Angie Tay said: "From the company's point of view, I don't think any company will want to do a big spamming exercise, trying to push out all the marketing messages, because they know that this period is actually very fragile. If they were to do that, it might affect their company's branding.

“But I do admit that probably at this period whereby everybody, or this window where everybody is adjusting, there might be smaller companies that will really go all out to push out all their marketing messages so that they will not violate any act or compliance."

Consumers who register after July 2, 2014 may still receive telemarketing messages for up to 30 days.

Post by Personal Data Protection Commission.

The PDPC said consumers also have a role to play to protect their personal data.

For example, consumers should only give consent to organisations from which they wish to receive telemarketing messages.

Consumers should also contact the organisation to withdraw their consent.

If there is a potential breach, consumers may first approach the organisation to withdraw consent, failing which they can complain to the PDPC.

Under the Personal Data Protection Act, local and overseas organisations must check with the DNC Registry to ensure that the Singapore phone numbers that they are sending telemarketing messages to are not listed in the registry.

Registrations with the DNC Registry do not expire, but consumers can deregister at any time.

Terminated numbers will also be removed from the registry.

Non-telemarketing messages, such as those relating to surveys and customer service, are excluded from the scope of the DNC Registry.

More information is available at the PDPC website.

Confessions of a former telemarketer

By Terence Voon, The Sunday times, 8 Dec 2013

When the national Do-Not-Call registry went live on Tuesday, I received four calls: Two offered me cash loans I did not need, one exhorted me to buy another insurance policy and the last urged me to sell my home "before it was too late".

I did what 66,999 other souls did that day, and signed up at the registry to shut these pesky calls and persistent callers out of my life for good. Too many meetings had been disrupted, too many meals paused in mid-chew, and too many conversations with people I actually cared about had been aborted with the phrase "let me take this call".

The last thing I expected to feel - when I carefully keyed in my mobile number on the registry website - was bittersweet nostalgia.

It felt like treachery too, because I was once a teenage timeshare telemarketer.

That was my vacation job, and I was spectacularly bad at it. It all began when I answered a newspaper advertisement promising me thousands of dollars a month just by making phone calls. I needed money to buy comics and fast food, and this sounded like a good deal. It sure sounded better than my previous vacation job, where I screwed in computer hard drives from dusk till dawn on a factory line in Kallang.

All it took to snag the job was, rather aptly, a phone call.

My office, if you could call it that, was located on the second floor of a shophouse in Boon Tat Street. Instead of desks, there were two long wooden tables, bolted to each side of a hallway.

Taking pride of place at the end of that hallway was an imposing whiteboard, neatly ranking names, number of days worked and the number of successful calls. My name was already on it, right at the bottom.

I clearly needed to work my way up, but the man who was supposed to show me how simply shoved a thick folder with names, numbers and addresses into my hand.

"Call these people," grunted the man whose name I have forgotten. He was a thin, sallow man with an even thinner moustache, but he had the manner of a retired army drill sergeant.

"Read this too," said Mr Drill Sergeant, shoving another folder at me. It was the company's cheat sheet containing a step-by-step guide to making a telephone sale. It taught me how to introduce myself to a stranger, to make him feel at ease, and to turn vague interest into a cold, hard sale.

By the end of the first day, there was still a big zero next to my name. Somehow, the people I called never picked up, hung up on me or threatened to call the police.

And some people, no matter how hard I tried, would not give me five seconds on the phone, let alone half an afternoon to attend an "investment seminar" with a worthless free gift thrown in.

I was a big-time phone flop and Mr Drill Sergeant was unimpressed. There was no basic salary and certainly no commission for duds like me, he warned, as my overachieving colleagues sniggered.

So I soldiered on, enduring rejections on the other end of the line that got ruder and ruder.

I didn't mind talking to a dial tone, but it was harder to shrug off people who called me names, threatened bodily harm or used creative Hokkien words to describe my parents' reproductive organs.

Sure, the cheat sheet taught me how to deal with hostility, but it had no answer for people who hate me without even knowing me.

That was where Mr Drill Sergeant came in.

After overhearing a conversation with a potential client that went south, he summoned me to his office - and dialled the number of the person who had just sworn at me and my immediate family.

He told the client in a quiet voice: "We're just doing our job, there's no need to be rude.

"Remember, we know where you live."

I was mightily impressed - and just a little bit terrified. That was also when I decided to quit.

Fourteen days, hundreds of calls and no sales later, with my name still at the bottom of that infernal whiteboard, I stepped out of that office for the last time.

My time as a telemarketer was over, but every phone call I received from one after that, I treated with patience and courtesy - no matter how awful the timing was.

Call it respect for my brief, much- reviled profession. Or you can call it fear.

After all, they know where we live.