How Hong Kong can hang up for good on nuisance calls

Charles Mok says the government consultation document falls short on tackling the issue of unwanted sales calls, and suggests special prefixes for legal telemarketers as well as penalties for flouters of this rule

Cold call companies have found ways to work around filtering apps. Photo: Xiaomei Chen
Rampant spam calls causing a nuisance are nothing new in Hong Kong. But the recent case of a hospital that spent a long time trying to reach the family of a car accident victim who needed urgent surgery, as the recipient thought these were unsolicited sales calls and did not answer the phone, really brought home the severity of the problem.
The Commerce and Economic Development Bureau initiated a public consultation on regulating unsolicited calls in May, but the consultation document not only fails to distinguish between sales calls to existing customers and those to strangers, its proposals are also passive and ineffective.
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