APIL targets cold calling
The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) has launched a national social media campaign to encourage victims of personal injury cold calling to ‘Can the Spam’ (@apilcanthespam).
A leading lawyers’ association, APIL said cold calling exploits vulnerable people, and hopes it will encourage people who are hounded by unwanted calls and texts about personal injury to report them to APIL.
‘Cold calling for personal injury claims is exploitative, tasteless and intrusive,’ said APIL president Neil Sugarman. ‘Solicitors are not allowed to do it, for these very good reasons. But some claims management companies continue to hound people in this way and we want the government to put a total ban on the practise.
‘Until the government is prepared to do this, we want people who receive these nuisance calls and texts to get involved in our social media campaign, which gives them easy routes to report their unwanted calls and texts, through our special Facebook page and Twitter account. We will then pass the information to the regulator.’
Mr Sugarman went on to suggest that the government has linked the scourge of cold calling and spam texting to its recent proposals to remove the right to claim compensation for some whiplash injuries.
‘The government has clearly got the wrong target in its sights,’ he said. ‘If the problem is nuisance calls, why target people with genuine injuries by removing their right to compensation for their pain and suffering? The answer, surely, is to stop the problem at its source. Ban the cold calling. It’s that simple.
He continued, ‘The number of complaints received by the Information Commissioner’s Office about accident claim nuisance calls and spam texts rose by almost half between 2014 and 2015. We’re all fed up to the back teeth with it.
‘As far as personal injury cold calling and spam texting is concerned, it has to stop.’
