If you are from India, there was good news from Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) when they allowed customers to register with National Customer Preference Register (NCPR) to stop unwanted calls. Customers who have registered with the NCPR should not be contacted by marketing and telemarketing companies. Also TRAI made it compulsory that marketing calls should be made from numbers starting with 140.

Due to cheap SMS packs and bulk messaging software, companies are choosing to market their products to customers on their mobile phones. This has become a huge irritation for many customers. If you are receiving SMS after registering with NCPR, follow these steps to report these companies. In the past TRAI has fined violators upto 2 lakhs and disconnected their numbers.

How to Report SMS Spam to TRAI

You can report violations to TRAI by calling or sending an SMS to 1909.

To report by calling, dial 1909 and follow the IVR directions.

To report using SMS, we need to send a SMS to 1909 in the format below.

“COMP TEL NO XXXXXXXXXX;dd/mm/yy;hh:mm”

Replace XXXXXX with the phone number from which you received the SMS or use the header or the sender like LM-SMSSDR. Replace DD with date, MM with month, YY with year, HH with hour and MM with minutes.

Your service provider should register the complaint and send a confirmation SMS with your complaint number. Action will be taken withing 7 days.

You check the status of your complaint on the Unique Complaint Number check page.

How to register for NCPR

If you havent registered for the No Call No Disturb, you can do so by sending an sms with “START 0” to 1909.

Smartphone users can use anti spam apps to protect themselves further. Choose from the wide range of free apps on the Play Store.

We hope this has helped you. If you know any tips that can help our readers be sure to leave and comment and share it with us.