Mobile phone users plagued by nuisance calls can now sign up to the Telephone Preference Service by text for the first time in a new service launched last week. To register, users simply need to text the letters TPS followed by their email address to the number 78070. The TPS will then reply to confirm that their number has been added to the database, and says the volume of unwanted calls should begin to diminish within a few days. The service becomes fully effective after 28 days.
The TPS hopes that the new service will make it easier for consumers to avoid unwanted marketing calls. To date, just 2.9 million mobile phone users have signed up to the mobile element of the service, with only 48% of people who are familiar with the TPS aware that it exists for mobile numbers as well as landlines. Some 85% of UK landlines are registered for the TPS compared with 3% of mobile numbers.
John Michison, head of the TPS, said: “Texting will make it easier for people to register their mobile numbers on the TPS, which is the only official no-call list, and help us stamp out rogue callers once and for all by giving the Information Commissioner more ammunition to prosecute these cases.”
Baroness Neville Rolfe, minister for intellectual property with responsibility for nuisance calls, said: “This new service from the TPS and Ofcom will help protect people with mobile phones, making it easier for them to register via text and opt out of the call list.”
