Beschwerde über Rufnummernmissbrauch und unerlaubte Telefonwerbung bei der Bundesnetzagentur

• Telekommunikationsgesetz (TKG)
• Ordnungswidrigkeitengesetz (OWiG)

If your telephone number or address has been used for unwanted advertising purposes without your consent, this is called misuse of your telephone number. You can file a complaint with the Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur) about unauthorised advertising calls, so-called cold calls. This concerns the misuse of telephone numbers

• by telephone,
• by mobile phone,
• by fax,
• by e-mail,
• by post

as well as

• incorrect or missing price information for stated telephone numbers in radio, television and print media.

Misuse of telephone numbers by telephone or mobile phone

These are

• Ping calls: You receive a call where your telephone or mobile phone rings only once. The number that then appears on your display is meant to encourage you to call back an overpriced number.
• Winning messages: You receive a prize notification by phone call or text message and in order to claim this prize or find out more details, you are asked to call a costly hotline.
• Unauthorised telephone advertising: You receive advertising calls from companies with which you have no business relationship. These are, for example, advertisements for products, lotteries, telephone contracts or magazine subscriptions.
• Unauthorised advertising via SMS or messenger services: Messenger services are, for example, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threema, etc.

Misuse of telephone numbers by fax or e-mail

This happens through

• Spam: You receive unsolicited commercial messages advertising products and services and may be asked to call an overpriced number.
• Dialer: There are certain services via data connections that are chargeable. In order to use such services, the call is made through a certain programme, a so-called dialer. The existing data connection (e.g. the internet) is disconnected and a new connection is established via a chargeable telephone number. If you are not informed sufficiently about a dialer or if you have not explicitly given your consent, this is also misuse of the telephone number.

Telephone number misuse by post

• Advertising and prize notifications: The sending of advertising or prize notifications by post is generally not considered to be misuse of telephone numbers if the price is stated for the telephone numbers indicated. If the price is missing or incorrect, you can file a complaint with the Federal Network Agency.

For the complaint, you need a form for your respective concern. You can find the forms for the different forms of number misuse on the homepage of the Federal Network Agency.

• Formulare der Bundesnetzagentur

There are no fees or costs.

You can submit your complaint in different ways: by post, as a fax or scanned in as an e-mail attachment.

In your complaint, you should provide information on the following points in particular:

• Date of the call
• The name of the caller and, if possible, their telephone number
• The name of the company on whose behalf the call was made
• the product advertised
• Details of the call
• Did you give consent to receive this promotional call? Did you later withdraw your consent?

 no Information

not applicable