His bill would outlaw a practice which results in millions of silent nuisance calls being made to telephone users every year by commercial operations. 

The calls occur when companies selling products over the telephone use predictive dialling technology to maximise the number of calls a call centre can make. 

When more people answer than the company predicted there is no operator to speak to the consumer and a silent call can be generated.  The consumer can be completely unaware of the source of the silent call as the number of the company is withheld.

Said Kevin Brennan “it is completely unacceptable that people are unnecessarily suffering in silence.  In many cases they are very worried that they are victims of a stalker or a grudge campaign.

Companies need to be much more responsible by doing 4 things.

Firstly reducing to a minimum the number of failed calls by building in a greater margin of error into their technology. 

Secondly, ensuring that if no operator is available, a message is played identifying the caller and apologising.

Thirdly, that no further calls are made to a consumer once they have received a dropped call. 

Fourthly that caller identification is always available to the consumer on 1471”

Mr Brennan’s bill would augment current legislation by creating a specific offence of a “corporate nuisance call”.

Kevin Brennan added,
“Although some steps have been taken to tackle this, not enough has been done.  More and more people will register with the Telephone Preference Service to remove their numbers from direct marketers’ lists unless action is taken.  Companies who generate silent calls are damaging their own industry.”