Industry calls for prison terms to back up cold-calling ban

Legislation needs to be “as robust as possible”

Victoria McKeever
clock • 3 min read

Advisers have claimed the 'legitimate interaction' clause in the government's cold-calling ban "clouds the issue" and called for cold-calling to be made a criminal offence.

Ark Financial Planning principal Phil Stevenson said: "In an ideal world making something illegal or against the rules would prevent it from happening. Unfortunately we don't live in an ideal world." The government published a consultation on banning cold-calls on 5 December. However it added a legitimate interaction clause, which exempts calls from the ban if a person has requested further information or has an existing relationship with the caller.   Stevenson said adding the ‘legitimate interaction' clause clouded the issue. He said the ban needed to be "carte-blanche". Stevenso...

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