Ofcom has issued notifications to Carphone Warehouse; IDT Direct(trading as Toucan); Brakenbay Kitchens Ltd; and Space Kitchens Ltd for causing annoyance to consumers through the making of silent or abandoned calls, and for not abiding by revised guidelines relating to such calls.

Ofcom found that the four companies had: (i) repeatedly exceeded the 3% limit for abandoned calls. Between April and July 2006 all four companies’ abandoned call rates regularly exceeded 3% and in some cases were higher than 20%; (ii) failed to include a recorded information message to prevent abandoned calls from being silent calls, during some or all of the period under investigation; and (iii) engaged in other forms of conduct Ofcom considers to be persistent misuse as set out in the Guidelines and specified in the notification issued to each company. Each of the four companies until 6 December 2006 to make representations to Ofcom, and non-confidential versions of the notifications (where we find out who was above 20% for abandoned call rates in any 24 period)will be published shortly.

Consumer organisations are bound to be pleased that Ofcom is, at last, taking action against comapnies for this. Although most consumers themselves will not be happy until Ofcom starts dishing out the fines - it can now levy 50,000 GBP for each breach of the rules.