PTA reminds how to block and report unwanted calls and SMS

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority’s (PTA’s) struggle for spam-prevention is not new, as we first heard about it in August 2009 when the authority wanted to establish a Do Not Call Register (DNCR). It later got a life and came into a working state in several stages. The authority published details in its consultation paper of October 2019.

Now it looks like the telecom authority in the country wants to remind the consumers about it. The PTA told, in a recent tweet, how the consumers can stop receiving unwanted calls and SMSs by blocking and reporting.

In the announcement, PTA emphasised, “unwanted calls/messages can be disruptive, but there are steps you can take to minimize them.” PTA notes below three possible issues and their solutions which are currently in place.

Block Telemarketing Communication

Telemarketing is one of the major communication ways unwanted by a consumer. If you do not want to take calls or messages by brands, offering right in the middle of when you were doing some important task, simply register your number with PTA’s Do Not Call Register (or DNCR for short.)

All you need to do is type ‘reg’ in a message and send it to 3627.

In case if you keep receiving those calls or messages, you will need to contact your service provider.

You can restart receiving these calls/SMS by sending “unreg” to 3627.

Block Spamming/Unsolicited Communication

In addition to telemarketing communication by known brands, there could be other spam calls or SMSs. The ones, which use fake caller IDs (consumer numbers mostly) instead of proper business channels. You can report those specific numbers as well.

Just send the caller’s number via an SMS to 9000. e.g. send “+923xxxxxxxxx” to <9000>.

In case of spam messages, forward the message to 9000, beginning with the sender’s mobile number.

e.g. send “+923xxxxxxxxx crap spam message as received by the sender” to <9000>.

Note: sending a message to 9000 will charge 10 paisas for each SMS.

Block Obnoxious/unknown Calls and SMSs

Further, you can report a number to your service provider, e.g. Jazz, Telenor, Ufone, or Zong. These telcos offer the service to blocklist a number or remove it from the list. Also, remember that this is a subscription-based service that may cost you differently from different providers, on daily, weekly, monthly or per call/SMS basis.

• Dial *420# to subscribe (or unsubscribe) on Jazz, Telenor and Ufone.
• Dial/SMS on 420 on Zong.

Before subscribing right away, you must check the pricing detail on their respective pages as linked above.

You can find the original tweet below.