Consumer Affairs will require blocking of spam calls

New measure to block intrusive commercial calls. The Ministry of Social Rights, Consumption, and the 2030 Agenda will include an amendment to the Customer Service Law that will require telephone companies to block unauthorized commercial calls, according to ministry sources who spoke to La Vanguardia .

The so-called spam attempts to advertise a product or service to an unsuspecting customer who hasn't requested it and force its purchase immediately. They are highly annoying and generate many complaints among users. These random communications have been prohibited, in theory, for two years by the Telecommunications Law. However, companies exploit legal loopholes, such as the acceptance of cookies on their website, for example, or consent given years ago in a contract that has expired, to continue urging users to purchase their services.

Contracts concluded in non-consensual communications will be declared void.

With this amendment, the Ministry will require companies to include a specific numeric code on their business numbers that allows the user to identify the call and distinguishes them from customer service calls, which will have a different, specific numeric code. All calls from businesses to users without identification codes will be considered intrusive or spam , and telephone companies will have to block them.

In addition, the Consumer Affairs Ministry will introduce another amendment to the same legal text to declare all contracts signed via unauthorized phone calls void, so that the incentive to continue these practices will almost completely disappear. Finally, in this same package of measures, it will force companies to renew user consent to receive calls every two years, so that they cannot cling to old signatures to maintain the practices.

These amendments are in addition to those introduced last week in the law, which involve ending the automatic renewal of electronic subscriptions such as mobile applications; requiring ticket sales companies and other services to include administration fees in the final price of the product; and banning fake online reviews.