Rules for telesales

Do you offer services or products by telephone? Then you must keep to a number of rules. Cold calling is banned.

Ban on cold calling

Companies and organisations are not allowed to call natural entities without their consent. Natural entities are consumers, sole proprietors, general partnerships, or professional partnerships.

Rules for telemarketing

Telemarketing is allowed if:

• the natural entity has given their explicit consent (opt in) to your organisation, for a specific purpose and for a limited amount of time
• you call an existing customer, or a customer relationship existed up until at most 3 years ago
• the natural entity is a donor to your charity, has volunteered for your organisation or attended a meeting

If you use telemarketing you need to be able to prove that you are allowed to call. Your organisation has the burden of proof.

Caller identification

You are not allowed to call using a private number. Your phone number should always be visible (caller identification) when making a call.

Calling customers

You have to ask new and existing customers if you may call them in the future. You ask this each time you call.

Your customer has the right to object by stating he does not want to be called. According to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) you then have to delete the customer’s data from your call list.

Rules for telephone conversations

• Immediately at the beginning of the conversation, you must give the name of the company or organisation for which you are calling. And you must announce that you are calling for sales purposes.
• You are obliged to provide information during the conversation. You must inform the other party of what you are selling, the length of the reflection period, and the costs.
• If you offer a new contract for services, for instance a subscription, customers must confirm a contract in writing (in Dutch) for it to be valid.