Telephone spam is so desperate in Spain that the Government has had to pass another law to put an end to it

If there is something that all of Spain agrees on, it is that we must put an end to spam calls, the problem is that at the moment it is not being an easy task. Have call filters that identify them, we can report If they call us without permission and there is even laws to end thembut they keep calling us. Now the Government is back on track with the new Law on Customer Service Services.

Another law. It was approved in Congress last month and is waiting to go through the Senate for final approval. It is the first state law to regulate customer service and places special emphasis on abusive practices such as automatic renewals without consent and commercial calls. It is striking that it is already the second law that includes measures against this practice (first was the General Telecommunications Law), which shows that the problem continues despite previous measures.

Against spam. The Government banned commercial calls without permission in 2023the problem is that most contracts include a clause called “prior consent”, so the prohibition is of little use. More recently They have banned spam calls from mobile numbers and now the new law includes new measures.

• Companies will be required to use specific prefixes that distinguish commercial and customer service calls.
• Operators must block commercial calls that do not use such codes.
• To discourage companies, contracts closed through non-consensual commercial calls will be declared void.

Doubts. The new measures pose more obstacles for companies that bombard us with calls, but we have already seen that the law is made, the trap is made. The obligation to implement specific codes sounds much more effective than other previous measures, but the reality is that we have been talking about the end of spam calls for years and they still continue to call us, so the doubts are there. Furthermore, we still have the problem of telephone scams that escape the regulations.

Fake reviews. The fight against spam calls is only one part of the new law. The text also includes fake reviews for the first time, a problem we have been talking about for years. The law sets a limit of 30 days to be able to post a review and prohibits buying and selling reviewsalthough it does not specify how it will fight against this practice.

Other measures. The law also includes other obligations for companies that provide customer service:

• Companies must report the total price of the service from the beginning, including management costs that may make the product more expensive, as often occurs in ticket sales.
• Customer service numbers cannot be premium rate numbers.
• They must guarantee that 95% of calls are answered in less than 3 minutes.
• Customers may request to speak to an operator at any time during the call.
• The period for addressing claims is reduced to 15 days. If the claim is for an improper charge, the period is reduced to five days.
• Companies with more than 250 employees that have a turnover of more than 50 million euros must guarantee service in the co-official language of the territory in which they operate.
• When a contract is automatically renewed, companies must inform 15 days in advance and facilitate cancellation of the service.

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