If you cold-call business, you need to be sure that you comply with your legal obligations as laid out in the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) (Amendment) Regulations 2004. It is unlawful for you or any of your employees call a business telephone number if the business has either told you that they do not wish to recieve such calls or the business number has been registered with the Corporate Telephone Preference Service (CTPS). These regulations apply equally to businesses, charities or other voluntary organisations.

All telephone lists you use must be checked regularly against the CTPS Register. It takes 28 days for for CTPS registration to become fully active, therefore you should check your data lists a maximum of every 28 days.

There are many ways you can check your lists:

• You can buy lists from a reputable source that provides ongoing alerts if a supplied number is added to or removed from the CTPS Register. This will typically add a few pence to the cost of each number you purchase;
• You can use a bureau service to cleanse your lists regularly. These typically cost from 1p per number checked and must be paid each time for every number checked;
• You can use a phone service, such as CallFusion, to screen numbers each time you make a call;
• You can purchase an annual CTPS License and screen your numbers or those of your clients as often as required, with no per-number costs.

CTPS Checker is a Windows desktop application designed for CTPS Licensees. Simple to use and with advanced number checking features, CTPS Checker can potenitally save you thousands of pounds in data cleansing fees and eliminate the risk of being fined for breaking the law.

For more information on the benefits and features of the CTPS Checker, click here.