OTTAWA – The CRTC’s National Do Not Call List continued to grow last year though Canadians lodged fewer complaints, according to the annual report released Monday.
During the 2014-2015 reporting period, from April 1, 2014 to March 31, 2015, Canadians registered 589,286 numbers, adding an average of 1,600 new numbers to the list every day, to bring the list’s total to 12,773,208 numbers.
Last year, Canadians filed 115,135 complaints via the National DNCL toll-free line and website, a decrease of over 11% from the year before. These complaints were related to each part of the Rules, including those related to the National DNCL, Automatic Dialing-Announcing Device (ADADs), and "dead lines" (cases where there is no caller on the line). Canadians also contacted the CRTC directly with complaints, questions, and comments about telemarketing over 6,500 times.
Since the inception of the National DNCL in 2008, there have been over 11,000 telemarketer registrations with the National DNCL operator. Of these, over 550 (5%) registrations were from entities originating from countries outside Canada, the majority of which were from the U.S. Over 220 (2%) of registered entities have re-registered with the National DNCL operator every year since 2008.
In 2014-15, 875 telemarketers were registered with the National DNCL operator, an increase of 23% over the previous year. Of those telemarketers, 38 were from outside Canada, including 36 from the U.S., France, and Jamaica. Telemarketers that were registered with the National DNCL operator bought 2,243 subscriptions to the List, to obtain access to telecommunications numbers ranging from one area code for one month to all area codes for a year. This represents an increase of 153 subscriptions, or 7%, from the previous year.
In responding to non-compliance, the CRTC issued 32 notice of violation (NoVs) amounting to $2,012,000 in administrative monetary penalty (AMPs). Of these NoVs, four were issued to entities outside Canada. Nine NoVs totalling $276,000 in AMPs remained before the Commission at the end of the reporting period.
The Commission also issued AMPs totalling $1,736,000. A total of 62% of the AMPs issued in the reporting period were collected. Payments to be made in installments beyond 2014-15 represent another 37%, for a combined total of 99%.
