Concerned about MRBI Unsolicited Calls

Hello,

My mother received call from the MRBI and thought it way MBNA so just spoke across them and say she was not interested in a survery and hung up.

They called back and I took the phone.

I asked her full name and she told me and told me that she was calling from the MRBI and off she went on her rant.

I asked her who the MRBI were. A marketing agency - fair enough.

I asked her where she got this number from. She said they have a random dialer system that as the name depicts dials random numbers.

Is that allowed or even legal? Unsolicited.....

Unless your mother has listed her number as no direct marketing calls (have a look in the online phonebook and there are symbols to denote certain numbers as no marketing calls) then there is very little you can do. If her number has the marketing bar then you need to contact Eircom first, next stop data protection commissioner.

TNS/MRBI are one of the largest polling companies in Ireland - Irish Times always use them.
The rarely if ever sell anything as they are looking for unbiased opinion on questions their clients want answered e.g. polotics, telephone services etc etc.

Quite harmless.

In my experience once you take part in a survey and answer questions for a market research agency you get numerous calls to participate after that. Furthermore if you ask them how long the interview will last they always underestimate the length of time. In the beginning I wanted to be helpful to them but they became a nuisance with the frequency and length of surveys. I told them then I did not want to take part in any more surveys and in fairness to them they never phoned me again. In truth, it was a relief when they stopped phoning.

Tell them you're a journalist and they won't bother you again!

They called to my door some time ago and my wife was too polite to do other than answer questions.

I was inside laughing until the questions start to get incredibly detailed including earnings band etc. I stopped laughing, went out and took the form, with all these answers, from the lady caller refusing to give it back.

She was quite insistent that it was their form and that supervisor would be upset, they would destroy it etc. etc.

I promised to send it back to them which I did, after I shredded it.

Thats all good and well that they are a large company used by the big wigs of respective industries.

That does not excuse the fact they use a random dialing machine to contact people. At no stage did she enquire to the age of either of us.

Who's to say the are not calling up 12 year old?

Anyway my point is - How can it be legal to use a random telephone number dialing machine because they will eventually come across an unlisted number.

Which by the way, my mother is and always has been.

derby123 said:

In my experience once you take part in a survey and answer questions for a market research agency you get numerous calls to participate after that.

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My experience is the opposite. I was telephone-polled by Red C a few times around the time of the 2007 General Election. I have never heard from them since.

Folder@ said:

Who's to say the are not calling up 12 year old?

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So what if they are? Most 12 year olds are well capable of answering the phone.

We get regular calls from them usually around tea time. I have consistently asked them not to phone us but they continue to do so. It cannot possibly be random picking of phone numbers because I am getting calls too often. I am also ex directory.

And if your ex directory and they are using a random dialer, does this not constitute unsolicited phone calling?

My entire family is ex directory on land lines and on mobiles but yet they are still able to call us for commerical purposes.

My wife got one of these phonecalls recently, even though ex-directory and on opt-out lists etc. etc. . She asked where they got the number and why did they ring a number on the opt-out list. The answer she got was that the call was initiated by a random dialing machine which then passed the calls onto a call centre as soon as someone answered. Totally illegal. She tried to get the details of the company from the caller, but as usual, they hang up instantly and the number came up as "private" on caller ID (also illegal for marketing firms?), so couldnt trace.

I think these companies are getting wise to the Data Protection Commissioner by restricting their number on caller ID and instructing their operatives to hang up if they get asked any questions. In the past, we have been sucessful in getting one of these companies fined by the DPC following a complaint, but difficult to do nowdays without a number and any details.