UPDATE MARCH 2012: The opt-out link has changed. Sign up on https://www.nationaloptout.co.za/ giving the minimum amount of details possible.
Everyone is familiar with the annoying call centre bitch or bastard, who calls you up, is rude to you, tries to sell you something you don’t want and then refuses to tell you where they got your contact details from. In anger and final frustration, the Daily Discharge has had enough – today we show you how you can get off the privacy invading National Consumer Database, and the equally annoying SMS database.
Virgin Mobile Call Centre Employee
You may be wondering what the National Consumer Database actually is. It is a database shared amongst all members of the Direct Marketing (read: Scumbag) Association of South Africa. Members of this esteemed organisation include all banks, all cellular providers, most insurance companies, all the large retailers and literally anyone else who pays the membership fee. All of the detail is available on their shitty website – riddled with spelling mistakes and bullshit attempts to make consumers believe that they have our best interests at heart.
So, for a small fee, any company in South Africa can have access to a massive database of consumer information. This includes your ID, phone numbers, address, and, in the case of your banks passing on the information such as mine did, details of your credit rating. This is how you get provided with “pre-approved” credit (Truworths is notorious for this).
The new Protection of Private Information Bill seeks to improve on the power that we have as consumers, and make the system more opt-in as opposed to the current opt-out. However, within the current statute, this is what we get:
Electronic Communications and Transactions Act. 2002
Chapter VII – Consumer Protection
Section 45 – Unsolicited goods, services or communications1) Any person who sends unsolicited commercial communications to consumers, must provide the consumer
a) with the option to cancel his or her subscription to the mailing list of that person; and
b) with the identifying particulars of the source from which that person obtained the consumer’s personal information, on request of the consumer.2) No agreement is concluded where a consumer has failed to respond to an unsolicited communication.
3) Any person who fails to comply with or contravenes subsection (1) is guilty of an offence and liable, on conviction, to the penalties prescribed in section 89(1).
4) Any person who sends unsolicited commercial communications to a person who has advised the sender that such communications are unwelcome, is guilty of an offence and liable, on conviction, to the penalties prescribed in section 89(1).
This means a few important things:
- They must provide you the name of the source of your details – the scumbags currently just hide behind the National Consumer Database, so you have no idea WHO put your details on it in the first place.
- After you register to opt-out, if they contact you again, they’ve committed a crime and you can lay a charge.
Ok, now I’ll get to the damn point – how do you register to opt-out?
They ask for a lot of information – the only essentials are your name and ID number. Do not give the scumbags any more than they need.
- National Consumer Database: http://www.facilities.co.za/dma/dnc.aspx
- ETL (SMS Database): http://www.etl.co.za/donotcontact.aspx
Note: Companies that you do business with (eg your bank) can still contact you after you register but companies that you do not have any dealings with may not, by the law shown above, contact you.
I have personally been registered on these sites for a few months, and have not had any unsolicited contact from any companies that I do not already do business with.
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Funny that you make this post. A short while back I nearly blew a vein when a virgin rep called me about their stupid contracts.
I also have some tips for getting them to quit:
http://www.gallozone.co.za/virgin-mobiles-shitty-cold-calls/
Cheers!
Gallo
The scariest thing is that I received a phone call yesterday – asking for my 9yr old son. so they could sell him some crap. I don’t mind myself because I tell them to f***off.
Is there anyone out there willing to take one Service providers like W2Mobile etc?
They send you an unsolicited sms/link/click message to subscribe you to their services and when you question then how did you subscribe initially or ‘asked’ for a wap push link – their excuse- you entered your cellphone number via their wapsite to request a wap message. I know of 3 person personally that this has happened to – my dad, husband and mother in law and the best part- my dad doesn’t even own a computer never mind knows how to use a computer! Then they turn it around as human error! Human error my arse! Where do they get your numbers from? Guess what! National Consumer database that’s where!
OMG!!! I just had one of “those” calls and nearly had a fit!!! I am rude with these people IMMEDIATELY because I did not ask them to contact me, and I do not require a free phone, a new credit card, a cellphone contract – WHATEVER!!!
And what does the woman tell me – “you don’t have to be rude. I’m only doing my job”. Girly, I did not tell you to apply for the worst job in the word. You set yourself up!!! Am DEFINITELY going to unlist myself. THESE PEOPLE DRIVE ME CRAZY!!!!!!!!!
A million thanks for this! I’ve received 6 different “offers” in the last 2 weeks, and I’ve had enough!! Have now registered, so I’m on a mission of destruction if any of these tosser companies contact me again for shit I either already have, or don’t need.
I have discovered that this company & site are selling my email address. I have never heard of them before or ever used them or given permission to sell my info. Who do I report them too.
http://www.eazysurf.co.za/
This is a copy of the email I received from a company that bought my address:
“I bought the email list from a website called mediatrader.co.za but when i wanted to confront them, the website did not exist anymore, so i happened to find them again, they are now doing business under the website http://www.eazysurf.co.za i dealt with a lady called caroline.”
Hi
Well, exactly to whom you can report them is a little bit mysterious, but I have managed to track down a branch of government which deals with consumer protection and rights. I found their contact details here: http://www.southafrica.info/services/consumer/consumer.htm but here’s a list of numbers you can contact. If they’re not exactly the right people they should be able to tell you where to go (which I hope isn’t “to jump in a lake”)
Eastern Cape – 045 808 4000
Free State – 051 400 4852
Gauteng – 011 355 8000
KwaZulu-Natal – 031 310 5300
Limpopo – 015 293 8300
Mpumalanga – 013 752 3761
North West –018 387 7700
Northern Cape – 053 839 4000
Western Cape – 0800 007 081
We’d be very interested to hear if getting in touch with these people helps – please let us know if you have found any success here!
ALSO, as one helpful commenter has pointed out, you can go to the Direct Marketing Association of South Africa and opt out (which may help reduce future calls): http://www.dmasa.org/, and then the same commenter had a pretty good strategy of repelling these people: http://www.gallozone.co.za/virgin-mobiles-shitty-cold-calls/ (Thanks Gallo)
Grateful for this info as I’m tired of these calls, which I see as a complete invasion on my privacy.
Seriously. When I ask these people “What am I going to do with TWO celphone contracts (because I already have one), they simply respond with “But you get the phone for free”… Which is technically incorrect as the handsets are subsidised and not actually free.
Who gives them the right to phone my on my personal number, all times of the day, and then try to intimidate me into buying their product?!
What worries me, is that if you p** off the wrong person and they decide to get even, they have access to very personal information (Like cellphone number & I.D)… So I try not to be rude, unless provoked.
It’s just so friggin annoying, and the last call I received, I went balistic, demanding to know where they got my info!!! he he he, and now I’m on my way
So thanks all, I’m determined to free myself from these idiots…
No problem – also you should try that trick with appending +XYZ to your email address to track who is selling your info on. Only works with gmail, but say you sign up for something at Standard Bank, you give your email address as name+standardbank@gmail.com – it’ll still send emails to name@gmail.com, but they will have the +standardbank attached to the email address they have for you. When you ask the cold caller what email they have for you, if they give you the +standardbank one, you’ll know Standard Bank sold them your info. Then you sue them for enough money to buy your own island.
I have been listed on the dmasa.org dnc for more than a year. In recent months many companies have started to ignore this list and are still contacting me. I try and get company information before I throw the etc act at then but as soon as I ask them for the source of their database the end the call.
It fully expect Ruthless companies to simply keep doing what they are doing. I have learnt that if the phone number is hidden its a cold call.
I am trying to opt out but it needs RSA ID number, what the fuck is that and how do I know what is mine. btw I am based in the UK and got a cold call and the agent told me that they got my details from NCD.
Anyone know what RSA ID is and how can i find out mine.
Cheers
Its the national identity number that’s only given to South African citizens or residents. So if you’ve never been here you won’t have one.
I don’t think it is a required field, but if it is, just make up a 13 digit number starting with YYMMDD (year, month, day – make up a date of birth basically) and then 7 other numbers.
Great blog! read many posts in it and this one is interesting as well! I have been to your blog before but lost connection as i forgot your blog link. I have bookmarked your blog in my delicious account and would love to visit it again!
I just had a call from a Miway Insurance cronie! She did not want to identify herself, neither did she want to tell me from which consumer database she got my details. I suggest we get the media to focus on the pompous idiots that BUY this information, just because they are too damn lazy to get off their fat, lazy behinds and do their own cold calling!!!
“They ask for a lot of information – the only essentials are your name and ID number. Do not give the scumbags any more than they need.”
You statement is more into protect your information however your subject is “How do you get your contact off the database.
Plz let me know how do i get my contact off their database as it is already there?
Hi
To get your details off consumer databases, what you need to do is fill in the two forms we’ve linked to in the article. As far as we know, doing so makes it a legal requirement for marketing companies to check their list against the list of people who have opted out, and remove those names.
It doesn’t work perfectly, but I personally noticed a dramatic decrease in cold calls after a few weeks, especially from phone companies and insurance companies. My bank continued to harass me.
Filled in the details in the Do not contact link but it would not send. The other link gives me a Server Error in ‘/DMA’ Application. I wonder if this has something to do with Telkom. I cannot remove my details from any of the databases.
Your hyperlinks seem to have been disabled, but going directly to the national consumer database site: http://www.dmasa.org/ and clicking on the left margin ‘opt out’ button seemed to work. They do need a confirmation email too, so I entered the one I send spam to, then visited it to confirm.
If you don’t have one of these, it’s worth creating a useless email address to give when forced to add a working email address to people you believe will spam you. Once every few months I just visit it to delete all and empty trash. You don’t even need to remember a difficult password, ‘coz it doesn’t really matter if it gets hacked.
https://www.nationaloptout.co.za/
Go and register with this website. I havent had any calls since registering with them and that was years ago.
Helen