With the introduction of the General Telecommunications Law, which purportedly banned commercial calls from July last year, the thought was consistent that these bad practices would disappear. How wrong we were. Despite our registration with the Robinson List, commercial searches are still alive to this day and the law a priori blocks them unless we allow it.

As our colleagues at Xataka Android have noted, the best solution is sometimes simpler than it seems. We can often avoid having to call us again by asking the teleoperator a simple question.

As defined in Law No. 11/2022, consumers have the following rights:

“Do not receive unsolicited calls for commercial communications, unless the user has prior consent to receive such commercial communications or the communication is supported by a basis of legitimacy other than that provided for in Article 6.1 of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 on the processing of personal data.”

In my particular case, commercial calls have increased compared to last year. Blocking numbers doesn’t help much: they still call you with a similar number. I’ve actually learned a few of the combinations they use to avoid it at this point. To prevent applications from detecting these calls as SPAM, they often use regular numbers, which is even more annoying.

Companies continue to abuse these practices, relying on a so-called pre-approval that we may one day accept and at some point click “Accept terms and conditions of service.”

However, there is often a question that makes telephone representatives very uncomfortable and can create the necessary tension in the conversation and prevent them from calling us again.

“Where did you get my number?” This question often leaves operators confused and they try to avoid it. If we do not receive a response after insisting on this, we must report a possible complaint to the AEPD (Spanish Data Protection Agency). It is a disturbing situation both for me and for an operator who is just doing his job, but it falls under the company’s responsibility to engage in illegal practices.

It’s not a perfect app, but it’s pretty useful. If we get used to hanging up on them, they will call us again. If we tell them not to call us without discussing the legal issues, they will call us again.

Image | Onur Binay

in Xataka | If you continue to receive spam calls even after you’ve blocked them, you’re not alone: ​​”prior authorization” is to blame.