It's also very unchristian to use the world's poor as emotional blackmail in an argument where they're utterly irrelevant.

They are unaffected by any of this, either by the credit text messages or anything that comes out of the ICO. How many village chiefs in Burkino Faso or Brazillian binmen are going suffer text harassment because of a poorly-regulated UK financial sector?

And for the confusion I apologise.

I could have used better phrasing I admit.

We do not know Ms. Stock's exact financial situation, but given that she was trying to borrow what for me is a relatively small amount of money suggests that she's not wealthy at all and quite likely to be in the 15 or 20% of UK households with no PSTN line.

Obviously the UK or EU have no jurisdiction in Brazil, but the problem is one that is growing and needs serious attention. It's quite plausible that even middle class Brits will be exclusively using mobile phones in the very near future, with land-lines being curiosities only found at our grandparent's homes.

And frankly, it's not even relevant to the question of harassment. I was merely pointing out that you were statistically totally wrong when you suggested nearly everyone has a land line.

Consider this one line from the article:

Now on Christmas day of all days of the year, I would not switch my phone off. My relatives would probably call the police to check if I was alive!

I only have a landline for my broadband and it really bugs me that I have to.

I have several friends who have a landline for ADSL, but no actual phone plugged in. It's particularly common in rented property, especially HMOs.

And, being female and not in high-paid work, quite unlikely to be in an occupation that prevents her having her phone off or silenced at night.


Indeed. The parlous state of the law in this regard needs fixing, and fast.


And you also implied that I was being "unchristian" and didn't care.

I do care. I've been harassed and it was horrid. This woman should not be being harassed and the offenders deserve a proper bitch-slap

However I do not accept that there is nothing individuals can do. I also do not accept that most people need to be contactable at night. I am also of the opinion that anyone who does need to be contactable on a 24hr basis would have to be pretty dumb to give their emergency number out.


Funnily enough, in my family, mobiles are banned on Christmas Day. But I know what you're striking at.

There are times where even such a calloused old git like me insists on having his phone on. It's just that when I'm sleeping isn't one of them.

P.S.
Is anyone else having issues with the forum inserting random "[/quote]" code?

In my case, I was on call for a while and needed my mobile by the bed. My provider was sending text messages at night, when the network was quieter.

I contacted them and told them not to. They stopped.

Now, I am not on call and I don't hhave to have the phone by me 24/7, so I leave it downstairs, and I generally switch it off or put it in Airplane mode, when I go to bed, to save battery.

I think it's fair to say that for some of us it's very easy to turn our phones off and for others it can present 'complications'.

The point is it really shouldn't matter whether you can or cannot; you shouldn't be receiving marketing crap in such forms.

Chalk this one down on the 'when I'm PM' list.

IMO some other fair points are that, until the authorities finally get their a*ses in gear about this,

1. if, like JJ, you genuinely can't turn your phone off, you should think very carefully before giving out that number to anyone who wouldn't qualify as an emergency.
   
   
2. if, like JJ, you genuinely can't turn your phone off but don't want to live like a hermit, it may be wise to consider a separate phone/SIM/number/ringtone/facility for personal use, as would suit your needs.
   
   
3. despite what should be the case, lots of companies (especially loan companies) are a*seholes and if you disclose your number to such a company, you may have just inadvertently elevated your risk of harassment.

There is a kind of related issue which I think needs a lot more scrutiny. I don't generally give my mobile number out. It's not on any of my social media profiles, nor do I use it when registering with (for example) online shopping sites. If a site requires me to hand over a mobile phone number to do business with them, I take my money elsewhere.

And yet I still get SMS spam and the odd cold call. How is this possible? There are only three explanations I can think of, either that it's entirely random number calling which I suspect we can never do anything about, or the mobile phone company itself has given my number to third party marketing companies, or it's 'escaped' from their database by some other failure on their part.

if either of the latter two have happened, I consider that both a significant breach of the data protection legislation and a breach of contract between the mobile company and me. But they're obviously not going to come out and just tell people either of those things go on and it's hard enough to get a decent answer out of a mobile phone company customer support system when its in their interests to give you an answer...

That just twists my chakras, that does.

I recently missed a tick-box on something or other which prompted Orange to pass my number to Bright Stuff. Cue the horror.

And, just like every other spam SMS of course, they said at the end "To stop receiving texts, send STOP to ******"

The O2 sending your phone number to every wife site you visit fuss of last week reveals that they do indeed share your number with “carefully selected partners”. So far, no one has managed too eek out of them who there trusted partners are. Suffice to say that they will be outfits with an interest in having phone numbers, and using them

Now, while I regard them as a toothless beast, I do register my numbers with the Telephone Preference Service.

Well, I don't want to judge how you spend your time on the internet but....

Jon

Wife Site