Telecoms operator TalkTalk has been fined £750,000 by the regulator Ofcom for making an excessive number of abandoned and silent calls. In total the company made about 9,000 silent or abandoned calls to potential customers in 2011. They were made through two call centres during a telemarketing campaign to attract new subscribers. TalkTalk said it had terminated its relationship with those businesses as soon as the problem was discovered.

Software error
Ofcom said TalkTalk had exceeded the limit for such calls on four separate occasions in a seven week period. Abandoned calls occur when a person answers the phone, but the caller then hangs up. A silent call is where the phone rings, but there is only silence on the other end of the line, and no information message is played. Ofcom said such problems were often caused by answer machine detection (AMD) technology. Sometimes the software mistakenly identifies an answer machine or voicemail, and terminates the call, even though it has been answered by a human being.

Fines raised
"Silent and abandoned calls can cause annoyance and distress to consumers," said Claudio Pollack of Ofcom........Read more here

Previous News about Talktalk:

Talk Talk - What a Load of.....Back again facing up to Ofcom now - allaboutFORUMS

TalkTalk Hangs Up On UK Call Centre

The Telecoms firm TalkTalk has announced it is to close a call centre in Northampton and cut up to 390 jobs as part of a UK review.
TalkTalk facing new Ofcom fine over silent calls

November 2011 - AAD News:
TalkTalk is expected to be fined up to £2million by regulator Ofcom for making silent calls to customers. The watchdog warned the telecoms group last month that it could be penalised after an investigation found it had made an excessive number of abandoned calls and had failed to keep adequate records to demonstrate that it complied with the regulator's rules.