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Do Not Disturb/Call Me, TRAI NCPR Regulation

In 2007, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) set up National Do Not Call (NDNC, also called as do not disturb, DND) Registry to curb unsolicited Commercial calls. i.e. any call/message, through telecom system promoting any commercial transaction for goods, investments or services, which a subscriber does not wish to receive.

It failed to help customers and in 2011, TRAI came up with new policy with name National Customer Preference Register (NCPR) and it became operational on 27th Sept, 2011.

Mobile phone users who want to register their phone number for Do not call registry may dial 1909 or SMS to 1909 with keywords ‘START 0‘ for registration and ‘STOP DND‘ for de-registration. Requests will become effective in 7 days from the date of request.

Partial Blocking: Apart from normal full blocking of telemarketing calls, subscriber now will also be able to opt for partially blocked mode, which will allow to receive promotions for specific categories like real estate, education, finance,  entertainment, health and tourism etc. This seperate list will be now called as National Customer Preference Register (NCPR).  By default, all subscribers will be moved to fully blocked mode. For partial blocking, SMS needs to sent to 1909 will be ‘START Option-Code’ and ‘STOP Option-Code’ . Once changed, preference cannot be changed for next 3 months.

Option code for each category is provided below:

  1. Banking/Insurance/Financial products/credit cards
  2. Real Estate
  3. Education
  4. Health
  5. Consumer goods and automobiles
  6. Communication/Broadcasting/Entertainment/IT
  7. Tourism and Leisure

So if you want to receive messages relating to only Banking products, then send SMS “START 1” to 1909. Similarly, for receiving messages relating to Health and Education, send SMS “START 4,3” to 1909.

Phone subscribers can check the status of their registration in Commercial Communications Customer Preference Registry here.

How to complain: In case subscriber still receives call/messaes, he should complain to mobile service provider, mentioning the caller/sender telephone number, date/time of the call and details of message. All complaints must be actioned upon within 7 days.

If you receive any unsolicited commercial communications seven days after registration of your telephone number in the NCPR, you may register a complaint by:

  1. Dialling the toll free number 1909; or
  2. Sending an SMS to 1909

It is important to note that: The complaint has to be registered from the telephone number on which unsolicited commercial communication has been received. Your complaint must be made within three days of receipt of the unsolicited commercial communication.

A. REGISTRATION OF COMPLAINT BY DIALING 1909:

Dial 1909, listen to the instructions and choose one of the following to register your complaint: Through customer care executive or Through IVRS(Interactive Voice Response System)

A1. REGISTRATION OF COMPLAINT THROUGH CUSTOMER CARE EXECUTIVE:

  1. Dial 1909 and select the option for registering the complaint through the customer care executive.
  2. Provide the details of the unsolicited commercial communication to the customer care executive including:
    a. Particulars of the telemarketer;
    b. The telephone number from which the unsolicited commercial communication originated;
    c. The date and time of the unsolicited commercial communication
    d. A brief description of the unsolicited commercial communication.
  3. The customer care executive will register the customer complaint and acknowledge the complaint by providing a unique complaint number.
  4. Preserve this unique complaint number for further communication.
  5. You will be informed of the action taken on your complaint within 7 days of the complaint booking.

REGISTRATION OF COMPLAINT THROUGH SMS TO 1909

  1. You may register a complaint regarding receipt of unsolicited commercial communications by sending SMS to 1909 in the specified format given below: “COMP TEL NO XXXXXXXXXX, dd/mm/yy, Time hh:mm” where XXXXXXXXXX – is the telephone number or header of the SMS, as the case may be, from which the unsolicited commercial communication has originated.
  2. The complaint will be registered and acknowledged by the access provider by sending a unique complaint number through SMS.
  3. You will be informed of the action taken on your complaint within 7 days of the complaint booking.

Click here to check your complaint Status

TRAI has announced to minimize unsolicited calls by penalizing telemarketing firms and operators with hefty fine.

From Sept 2011, all telemarketer’s calling numbers will start with ‘140‘. All telemarketing must get special phone numbers starting from ‘140’ series, so that mobile phone user may decide to accept or reject just by looking the caller phone number. If some telemarketer calls from any other number (not starting with 140), he may be fined with hefty penalty.

TRAI has proposed fine from 25,000 upto 2.5 lakh (depending on number of times complaint has been registered) on telemarketing firms against whom complaints have been received.

Mobile service provide maybe fined upto Rs 10 lakhs, if there are four times complaints.

Mobile phone subscribers (non tele-marketers) can now only send maximum 100 SMS in a day. It will stop marketers to use mobile numbers not registered as tele-marketers and will force them to get a separate marketer number.

Every telemarketer will have to deposit 10,000 (9,000 for customer education and 1,000 as registration fee) for registration. Also a security deposit of Rupees 1 Lac, also will have to deposited. Any fines on telemarketer will also be deducted from this security amount.

Commercial messages can only be sent during 9am till 9pm only.

Mobile phone operator will be managing customer preferences at their end and filter out SMS/Phone calls based on subscriber registration status.

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68 Comments

  1. Next time an insurance agent calls threaten them for legal action. It worked for me.

    However suppose you have an ICICI account, your mobile number will be with them and banks use it for cross selling creditcards, insurance etc. You can put an end to that by calling their customer care.

    If things are getting worse, file a case with the consumer court.

    Also make sure you dont give your mobile number to those guys who stand outside every mall promising free vacation/holidays.

  2. I already have done all these things.

    3 times filed complaint with consumer forum.
    Have registered with all major banks for DND separately thru their website.

    Supreme court rightly says that this country needs Do-Call Registry and not a Do-Not-Call registry.

  3. Every time I complained to Vodafone, I got following reply:

    We have registered your concern regarding the unwanted solicitation calls received on your Vodafone number. As per the TRAI guidelines, the details shared by you will be forwarded further to the telecom operator brand from where the call has been initiated to take the necessary actions. We would request you to provide us with the next 21 days for the same.

  4. After reading many posts about second income calculator your article gave me the right thoughts i was searching for.

  5. sir i am a vodafone cutomer and i am getting advertise continue through sms add of carrer launcher , so what to do plz help me how to do stop on that or complaint on CL

  6. Hi Pankaj,
    I have lodge a complaint in Consumer court as my DND service is still not activated aftre 1 yr. Is it mandate to invlove TRAI as a party? My service provider has replied that case should be dismissed due to non involvement of mandate party i.e. TRAI.
    Kinldy reply
    Rgdrs
    BRV

    • @Bharat
      Service provider generally activates DND services and adds the number to registry maintained by TRAI. You can file a case against your service provider and there is no need to involve TRAI as a party as you are not directly interacting with TRAI.

  7. Hi Pankaj,
    Thnx for your reply. So can I directly reply that TRAI is not a mandate party in DND case as said by IDEA advocate. Can you please give me some clause or case number of DND in which consumer won and TRAI was not a prty so that as an example I can show the same in my next hearing i.e. 29 dis month.
    Rgards
    BRV

      • Hi Pankaj,
        Being as a lay man I am not able to undersatnd all the mention points in case. I am sorry to disturb you again but Is this mean that any consumer can file a case in consumer forum against service provider without including TRAI as a party. Sorry for so much quetions but its really important for me. and thanx for your time and patience in advance..
        Rgards,
        BRV

        • @Bharat
          Like you, I am also a common man and have little knowledge of law. I am actually a software engineer and share knowledge to spread awareness.
          However, I have tried to understand the case, there are 3 cases in it. One each against cellular operator, TRAI and telemarketer. So case can be filed against any of the 3.

          • Dear Panka,
            You are not alone ,I am also suffering with this problem I registered for DND 3 years back & regularly getting calls from telemarketing ,It is true that there is no solution to it.
            The best way is “Don’t reply them when they call”
            I get around 450 sms within a week & now I have stoped reading sms.

            Also tell me the solution if you get.

            Ravi RAnjan Sharma
            09810033631.

            • @Ravi
              Even don’t reply to than is also not a solution as not all unknown numbers are tele marketers.
              SMS are a huge problem now-a-days with bulk sms cost going down to 3-4 paisa and mobile database available for cheap.
              I keep sending these phone numbers to my provider (vodafone) in complaints, but they are unable to take any action.
              Now thinking for filing a case against Vodafone, TRAI and some marketers.

  8. @ Pankaj,

    Whats happening about your plan for case? I think provider should not get 500 Rs from telemarketer. There should be some option that customer get that money. We are wasting our time and we have to call provider to complain. I never saw an online option to give complain about telemarketer in any provider.
    Also being a user doesnt means I can be called for their advertisements. For example, I have a airtel landphone doesnt means they can send notifications from airtel to my mobile or I should have an option to opt out.
    May be lot of people will be able to join together and give a case. Let me know if i can help you anyway if you going for this case.

    • @Vinod
      I did complain into consumer forum and after that the numbers of calls have dropped significantly. However the number of spam SMS (specially for properties etc.) I receive is still huge and is a big concern.
      After bulk SMS price has dropped to 1-2 paisa, it has made life difficult for a mobile user.
      I had registered complaints n number of times to my connection provider (Vodafone) for these SMS with exact details. Every-time they take 20-25 days and then come up with details like some of them have been fined, some of the line has been disconnected and some had denied that they even sent message.

      Its the issue of policy/law enforcement in India. Its high time that we all wake up, change our-self and fight for our rights.

  9. Vodafone India Service is the worst in India with Ad SMS flodding inbox.They dont have any ethics.i disconnected all my vodaphone numbers.They dont support the customers.They sell the customer database for price i’m sure.

    Like Pankaj Batra said, vodaphone dont care customers. then why we take their connections.Just disconnect and take legal actions.

    • @Suchitra
      Generally, Its not only with Vodafone but with each and every service provider. Every provider sells the database.
      Nobody follows DND and even take care of DND complaints.

  10. Hi, I complained 4 such complains day before yesterday to Airtel online DND complain form. Till date i have received three confirmation that Airtel is going to take action by 21st Dec, 2010. I am going to write back to nodal officer and wanted to know what are the actions they have taken this time else planning to complain to consumer court for supporting violation of DND list and TRAI directives.

    • Same is the case with me, I’m using Tata CDMA, given to me by my company. But I’m continuously following up with their customer care.

      I can give some advice to those who are facing this issue:

      1) Call customer care of your provider, and issue a complain stating nature of unsolicited communication(SMS/call) and do take a complain number from them.
      2) Follow up several times with them for the booked complain number. Escalate this matter to higher authorities in the service provider and threaten them of taking this case to the consumer court.
      3) If you get telemarketer’s number by any means, then call him and order him to remove your number from his list and threaten them to drag to the court.(You can do all this since you have already registered your number in the DND registry). Make telemarketer’s life miserable by repeatedly calling them at midnight hours.
      4) Make customer care’s life miserable by calling them until you get a solution.

      My problem with Airtel is resolved completely (took 2 months) and I’m doing same with Tata

      Aside to Pankaj, try the above with Vodafone.

  11. dear sir, i m very old postpaid custumer of vodafone u.p west no. 9719727000 my full dnd is on but still vodafone do promoton calls n sms regarding jodii pack many times i complained but not solved what i do
    gaurav bansal
    9719727000 u.p west

  12. I GUESS AIRTEL IS HAND IN GLOVES WITH THIS SMS SENDERS AND CALLER BECAUSE I HAD REGISTERED MY COMPLAINT ON 6/7/11 W1052937922 THEY TOLD ME IT WILL BE EFFECTED IN 45 DAYS BUT THIS NONSENSE HAS STILL NOT STOPPED.THIS IS JUST TO MAKE MONEY BY TAKING PEOPLE FOR GRANTED

  13. My Preference status shows it as ‘0’, hat does that mean?

    I want to continue receiving messages, so what status will reflect it?

    I have sent the message to 1909 but want to understand what Preference status will show it’s active.

  14. I am having complaint regarding to My Airtel service provider, it was send me a message regarding gprs activation and all and also receiving message from online shoping. and also logged complaint for it from online via airtel website.
    but issue is, my first complaint is for airtel in the morning and i was able to register a complaint and my dnd is activated on 2008 and also having dnd registration no. but on that day in the evening, customer care is saying me on call that your dnd service is not activated , now and after listening to this when i was trying to complaint for is online…. at that time it was showing that you are not in our dnd list.
    so please show me other way to lodge a complaint regarding it.

  15. I have registered under National Customer Preference Register (NCPR and I am a Airtel user, but still I got promotional sms.
    How can I sue the company for penalty and how much penalty is liable in this case.
    Plz reply.

    • @Himanshu
      Maximum what you can do is complain on 1909 and Airtel will inform you action taken within seven working days.
      Unfortunately, even if marketeer is penalized, you won’t get anything. Fine would be paid to TRAI only.

  16. I tried sending sms to 1909 total 3 times.. but all time it said “your request cannot be processed. as per TRAI norms DND complaint can be accepeted for calls/SMS receivied in last 3 days. Format ? Comp TEL NO ; dd/mm/yy;hh:mm; short description of unsolicited commercial communication”
    i dont know if any one has successfully sent sms to them.

    • @Viral
      You need to submit complaint is prescribed format only. If it still does not accept, you may also complain by calling 1909.
      I have already made more than 60 successful complaints till now.