'Silent calls' earn TalkTalk hefty fine

Ofcom has slapped a £750,000 fine on TalkTalk after the telecoms firm was caught making an excessive number of abandoned and silent calls.

The regulator's investigation revealed that TalkTalk made 9,000 silent and abandoned calls to potential customers between February and March 2011.

Two call-centre operators working on behalf of the company – Teleperformance and McAlpine Marketing – exceeded the limit of abandoned calls four times in 2011 during telemarketing campaigns.

They also failed to ensure that information messages were played, meaning consumers received silent calls.