It's a real scourge that affects landlines, cell phones and spreads to messaging applications.
The interlocutor at the end of the line offers the option of using your personal training account (CPF), reductions on energy renovation or a new Internet package.
Often based abroad, teleprospecting advisers - sometimes even real crooks - use powerful digital tools to contact you and sell their products.
They use gigantic personal databases with your identity and your numbers.
When they are not the result of a data leak from a company, they have been harvested and are used legally.
“There are companies that specialize in building and selling prospecting lists,” recalls Juliette Delanoë, founder of Ubble, a start-up that offers remote identity verification.
To read also Telephone canvassing: when will the right to tranquility be granted?
"It's completely legal, because no one reads the T&Cs of a service before accepting them and they often specify that the company reserves the right to resell the data collected during registration", points out her finger.
What to do once the phone numbers are exchanged and the nuisance calls pile up?
Here are practical solutions and techniques to put in place.
new landline phones
To protect your landline, the first thing to do is add your number to the Bloctel list (by going to bloctel.gouv.fr), a free system that allows you to oppose any cold calling.
And if you are ever contacted by a company that does not respect the law or that operates from abroad, you can always exercise your right to object to the person you have online, by asking him to be removed from the listings.
The legislation authorizes you to do so, in particular the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a text which in Europe governs the processing and circulation of personal data.
Remember to clearly identify the company that contacted you for a possible complaint to the Cnil in the event of a repeat offence.
The latest generations of fixed telephones, released 2 years ago, filter suspicious numbers upstream by picking up the phone for you and asking the robot to type in a code.
They are based on updated blacklists, but marketers often use virtual and random numbers to avoid blockages.
Read alsoThe fixed telephone has not yet hung up: “The pandemic has changed the situation”
The latest generations of fixed telephones, released 2 years ago, filter suspicious numbers upstream by picking up the phone for you and asking the robot to type in a code.
They are also based on updated blacklists, but marketers often use virtual and random numbers to avoid blockages.
Software for your smartphone
Regarding calls on your smartphone, the first option is the most obvious: manually block unknown numbers or numbers deemed pushy for the wrong reasons each time.
Other solutions exist on the software side of your phone.
On Android, the Google Phone application, which is installed from the Play Store, allows you to activate the “Automatically filter and reject automatic calls” option.
Your phone will detect unwanted calls from numbers listed in a Google spam database.
The Google Assistant will also ask the caller to identify themselves and specify the reason for their call.
If it determines that it is an automatic or unwanted call, it hangs up.
Other applications, such as Orange Telephone or Should I Answer, also filter calls.
Please note that some free applications begin by asking you at the start... for your number.
To feed their own databases.
On iOS, applications such as Truecaller, Avira Security or Orange Telephone make it possible to filter, on the same principle, calls related to telemarketing.
Even more radical, the “Silent stranger call” option, available since iOS 13 (2019), is responsible for sending non-directory or questionable numbers directly to the answering machine, without the terminal ringing or vibrating.
On messaging apps
With the development of filter tools on the classic lines, marketers have shifted their attention to popular applications like WhatsApp.
In the event of intrusive calls or messages, do not hesitate to block, but above all to report the number that is requesting you in order to report the information on an attempt to spam you.
A joint approach to a collective problem.
