Ofcom fines Barclaycard for silent calls

Ofcom has imposed a £50,000 fine on Barclays Bank Plc (trading as Barclaycard) in relation to "silent" or "abandoned" calls, which it found amounted to persistent misuse of an electronic communications network under section 128-130 of the Communications Act 2003.

Causing silent calls can amount to "persistent misuse" of an electronic communications network, under sections 128-130 of the Communications Act 2003.

Silent calls are typically caused when a call centre makes a number of automated calls but does not have enough staff to deal with calls that are answered, leaving some call recipients hearing nothing when they pick up their receiver.

Ofcom found that Barclaycard had made an extremely high number of silent calls where the call recipients had no way of knowing who had made them, and that some call centres had no procedures to prevent people receiving repeated abandoned calls over a short period of time.

£50,000 is the highest fine available to Ofcom for this offence, and Ofcom has announced that it would have liked the fine to have been higher.

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