I recently noticed several missed calls on my mobile from a number I didn’t recognise, so decided to Google it in a spare moment, and discovered that it’s a well known nuisance cold caller, LBM Marketing. Luckily there’s a page with plenty of information with what you can do if you’re called by them: ‘LBM Direct Marketing – nuisance calls‘.
While I was happy to find that information before I got cornered by an annoying cold call, I started wondering about how much of an effect the internet has really had in convincing companies to become more honest. Obviously there will always be bad apples, but the complaints on that page go back to July 2006. And despite details of complaints to the likes of the Telephone Preference Service, and Ofcom, the calls are still continuing for new targets.
It made me question how many people did any research on these numbers after being cold-called. With over half of the UK on broadband, if everyone researched who was calling them, it should soon make it unprofitable for LBM to continue the way they have – and yet they seems to be still able to continue as normal.
The question is how to improve the information available online, and help to inform as many people as possible about the options available to them, or how online information could help regulators.
(And it’s not just companies creating problems, after the confusion caused by the @ExxonMobilCorp account on Twitter, which was perceived as an official source, and has since been revealed as a fake.)