Will we finally get rid of cold calling ? This scourge affects nearly three out of four French people, disturbed by these irritating calls at least once a week on their mobile, according to a survey conducted in 2023 by UFC-Que Choisir. While the practice has become more regulated in recent yearssome senators want to put an end to it: a bill from the Les Indépendants group, aimed at introducing compulsory consumer consent for these calls, is being examined this Thursday, November 14, after being rejected in committee.

In theory, however, telephone canvassing is already quite restricted: calls are only possible on weekdays between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., and the same person cannot be called more than four times in 30 days by the same canvasser. In addition, the telephone numbers used have been restricted to make them easier to identify. Not counting the Bloctel servicewhere consumers can register their opposition to all canvassing.

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“Mass of rogue behavior”

Insufficient, say the authors of the proposed law. Too few French people are registered on Bloctel, with only 12 million numbers registered, i.e. 10% of telephone lines. And many of those registered say they are still being canvassed, as the DGCCRF (Répression des Fraudes) confirmed to elected representatives. The consumer watchdog carried out 5,300 checks in 2023, and 60% of companies did not comply with the rules. In all, 198 fines were handed down last year, for a total of 4.4 million euros.

But “the volume of calls and reports is out of all proportion to the DGCCRF’s limited investigative resources”.noted the senators. Fraud control has also “reported difficulties in punishing principals based abroad, or in tracing the origin of the call when the number used has been spoofed”..

Thousands of jobs at risk?

In front of the “mass of rogue behavior”The authors of the proposed law believe that the most effective approach is to ban the practice by default. In concrete terms, they propose to reverse the philosophy of telephone canvassing. Today, consumers must indicate their opposition to being called (“opt-out), the elected representatives are proposing that you should instead have to give your consent to be called (“opt-in). For example, this is already the case, in theory, for promotional e-mails: when you register on a site, you have to tick a box to give your consent to receive them.

However, the equation is tricky from an economic point of view: according to the DGCCRF, quoted by the authors of the text, between 29,000 and 40,000 businesses depend on telephone canvassing. “Canvassing annoys millions of people, not to mention scams”.defended Senator Pierre-Jean Verzelen, author of the bill, at Ouest-France . He also believes that this “concerns far fewer jobs than some industry players claim”.stating that “the business has collapsed” and that “canvassing is heavily outsourced to other countries in Europe and North Africa”..