A national survey company is apologizing for thousands of late night calls Monday night.
EKOS/Probit says a technical glitch resulted in 24,000 calls for a political survey across Canada, after 9:30 in each local time zone.
CRTC telemarketing regulations do not allow telemarketing calls after 9:30 Monday to Friday.
Company President Frank Graves says, “Upgrades were made to the system that inadvertently over-rode the call window parameter setting. We have since worked with our interactive voice response supplier and have fixed the problem. This will not happen again.”
One Calgary man says he was called at 10:40 last night and the call woke up his children.
EKOS says this is the first time that this type of error has occurred.
They are offering anyone contacted to be added to their own internal ‘do-not-call-list’.
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(For the list of rules for telemarketers and the National Do Not Call List click here.)
The company has posted the following letter of apology on its website:
SORRY! A MESSAGE FROM EKOS RESEARCH ASSOCIATES
REGARDING LATE NIGHT CALLS
November 19, 2012, past 9:30 pm local time. Households were erroneously called past the time
that we programmed into the system. On weekdays, we set a calling window limit of 8:40 pm
local time for our automated interviewing operations.
On November 19, 2012, upgrades were made to the system that inadvertently over-rode the call
window parameter setting. We have since worked with our interactive voice response (IVR)
supplier and have fixed the problem. This will not happen again.
We have been using interactive voice response (IVR – automated interviewing) for over 4 years
now and this is the first time that this type of error has occurred. We are very sorry to all that
were the subject of these terribly late phone calls.
If you wish to have your number added to our internal ‘Do-Not-Call-List’, or wish to lodge a
complaint, please contact us at inquiries@probit.ca or 1-855-288-4932.
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