NDNC Registry…..

… which stands for the National Do-Not-Call Registry is reported to have become operational with effect from September-1, 2007. I read the story in the HT, which carried it on the front page. Curiously and mysteriously, the ToI had no mention of the story whatsoever….

Anyway, the paper article also had a section on how to register, which hasn’t made it to the online article….. but you can check it out here. Don’t ask how. And let me know in case I need to take it off!

Anyway, as per the instructions, I proceeded to send DNDA to 30333333 from my RCom mobile. And received a delivery receipt, along with the following highly instructional reply:

Dear Customer, This SMS could not be delivered. Please enter the city STD code first, followed by the number and send the SMS again. Reliance

So then tried sending the same SMS to 333, where the result was even more encouraging - message sending failed, with the error message Recipient has no message service. Then sent the SMS to XXX30333333, and this time it seems to have gone into a black-hole - no delivery receipt, no acknowledgment, nothing at all!

During the search, I’d discovered that RCom now had an online Do Not Disturb form, titled Do Not call me, I’ll call you! And required you to provide your first-name, last-name, date of birth, location, billing address and mobile number. And all this, so that RCom wouldn’t contact you for any promotional stuff!!! How else would you interpret:

Reliance Communications may contact you from time to time, to inform you about new features, products and promotional offers that can give you benefits or effect significant savings.

However, if you do not wish to be informed about these benefits through telephone calls or by SMS, you can unsubscribe from such communication by filling up the form given below. Your request will be honoured within 30 days from the date of submission.

From the Reliance Infocomm DND form page.

Why not a DND by SMS (like with Hutch, and it worked!) And why 30-days?????

Then proceeded to send ACT to 111 as per the instructions for Hutch. And after a fair spell, got a reply from 111 saying: The message format is invalid…. with a lot of other things I could do like activating Planet Hutch, set up Basic Roaming, International Roaming, set a caller tune….. but no mention of activating the Do-Not-Call!!

A visit to the NDNC site is most instructional - in “Information for subscribers > How To request” you will find a link to a PDF file that’s corrupt or invalid! And pretty much nothing more that’s useful.

Leading me to wonder whether NDNC really stands for National Do-Not-Care registry!!