While new decrees came into force in January and March, cold calling continues to annoy millions of French people. Recently, a study by the UFC Que Choisir pointed to this annoying practice of solicitation: the French receive an average of 4 unsolicited calls per week, that’s too much!
Officially, telephone advisers can only call you between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. or between 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. on weekdays, Monday to Friday. No more unsolicited phone calls on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays.
In addition, they can no longer solicit you more than 4 times a month. The telecoms regulator (Arcep) and the DGCCRF watch over these practices to facilitate the daily life of the French, many of whom have become accustomed to no longer answering the telephone for this. If you are the victim of an aggressive canvassing, do not lose your calm and hang up on your face: this is the worst strategy.
? Consumers: canvassing is now only allowed Monday to Friday, between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., and never more than 4 times a month by the same professional
To find out more, read our fact sheet
? pic.twitter.com/iNcYcQmm44— DGCCRF (@dgccrf) March 1, 2023
Numbers to blacklist
As part of the new rules, the government has imposed new restrictions on call centres. They can no longer use any number to solicit customers. First, they no longer have the right to use numbers that begin with 06 or 07 – which are reserved for interpersonal communications. If someone calls you with one of these two codes, the probability of having an aggressive telephone counselor on the other end of the line is low (but unfortunately not zero).
But above all, call center operators are now forced to use precise codes. If you see a phone number displayed on your smartphone (or on your landline) that starts with one of the numbers below, you can be sure: it is necessarily a telephone adviser who wants to canvass you. That said, it has the merit of using a legal way to contact you, which is already appreciated.
The official calling codes in France:
- France M. : 0162, 0163, 0270, 0271, 0377, 0378, 0424, 0425, 0568, 0569, 0948, 0949
- Guadeloupe, Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthélemy: 09475
- Guyana: 09476
- Martinique : 09477
- Reunion and Mayotte: 09478 and 09479
Register in the Bloctel directory
If you don’t want to deal with these types of advisors anymore, the most radical method is to blacklist all these numbers. As soon as an advisor tries to contact you, just hang up before you even pick up, and pass this phone number to spam (via the blocking option on most devices). For those who do not want to bother with this process, it is also possible to register in the Bloctel directory.
Telephone advisers are obliged to check that the numbers they call do not appear in this Bloctel list. If they do not, the penalties are very heavy: up to €75,000 for a natural person and €375,000 for a legal entity (Article L242-16 of the Consumer Code). If you are listed there but an operator tries to reach you, all you have to do is remind him of the law for him to hang up almost instantly.
Finally, those who do not have the courage to block numbers one by one, it is also possible to use third-party applications that allow harmful numbers to be filtered. This is the case, for example, with the Orange Telephone service, which systematically blocks all unwanted calls thanks to a collaborative database. Still, anonymous numbers always slip through the cracks…
