Telephone canvassing: consumer associations criticize the government's plan

Twelve consumer defense associations on Wednesday criticized a draft government decree on telephone canvassing, currently being consulted by the National Consumer Council, "

which results in legitimizing the harassment to which consumers are victims

".

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"

While the telephone canvassing has increased with the health crisis, we would expect the government to use its prerogative to establish uncompromising rules to guarantee the tranquility of consumers

", write in a press release Wednesday the twelve associations, the ADEIC, AFOC, ALLDC, CSF, CNAFAL, CNAFC, CLCV, Familles de France, Familles Rurales, INDECOSA-CGT, UFC-Que Choisir and Unaf.

50 hours of calling time per week

However, according to them, the draft decree "

nevertheless authorizes slots of more than fifty hours of call per week, over six days

". In addition, if consumers decline the commercial proposal from the first call, "

the direct seller of the same company will be allowed to call them up to four times in total during the same month, that is to say once a week

", s' the associations indignant.

"

This tolerance is all the more unacceptable as it constitutes an almost blank check for professionals, such as those in the supply of energy or household work, which still escape any sectoral framework

", castigate these twelve associations.

All are members of the college of consumer defense associations, which is part of the National Consumer Council, a joint consultative body created in July 1983.

Petition: 450,000 signatures

Several of them had launched a petition against this canvassing in January 2020, and said on Wednesday they had collected 450,000 signatures.

They demand "

the complete rewriting of the government draft decree

" so that the time slots during which canvassing is authorized are "

drastically

"

reduced

.

And that “

the right of consumers who decline a commercial proposal not to be recalled

”

be generalized

, which had been “

obtained by the law on the insurance sector

”.

Bloctel file

In France, at present, everyone can be canvassed, unless they have entered their number in the Bloctel file, a service set up in mid-2016 which theoretically allows you to no longer be disturbed by unwanted calls. However, telephone canvassing was “

not limited by Bloctel. Four years after its establishment, the device is proving ineffective due to far too extensive exemptions and insufficiently dissuasive sanctions

, ”these associations criticized in January.