Carphone Warehouse has been fined £35,000 by Ofcom for making ‘silent calls’. Silent calls can occur when automated calling systems used by call centres generate more calls than the available call centre agents can manage. When the recipient answers the telephone and there is no agent available, the automated calling system abandons the call. This can result in the person called experiencing silence on the line when they answer the telephone. The limit of silent calls is currently 3%, which all four companies repeatedly exceeded and in some cases were higher than 20%.Ofcom, the telecoms watchdog, fined four companies in total for “making an excessive amount of silent or abandoned calls.” Toucan was fined £32,500 and direct sales companies Space Kitchens and Bracken Bay Kitchens were fined £45,000 and £40,000 respectively.
