How Do You File a Complaint Against Harassing Phone Calls

Harassing and intimidating phone calls are very common nowadays. Some marketing companies call you again and again for their product promotion and some people call people for intimidating, harassing, bullying, and making fools through money transfers. So, people must have some right to get rid of all these issues that happened to them. You have to raise a consumer complaint if you cannot solve the issue by taking some primary steps. This blog will declare how you can cope with the problems faced for embarrassing and harassing calls.

What is a harassing phone call?

A harassing phone call is a type of communication in which the caller repeatedly or aggressively contacts someone with the intent to disturb, annoy, threaten, or harm them. Harassing calls can come in many forms including:

• Repeated calls: Continuously calling someone over a short period, even after they ask the caller to stop.
• Threatening language: Using aggressive or threatening words, whether direct or implied, to intimidate or create fear, kidnap or injure.
• Obscene or offensive content: Making inappropriate or vulgar comments, or engaging in sexually explicit conversations without consent.
• Stalking behavior: Calling repeatedly to track or monitor someone's whereabouts, activities, or personal life.
• Prank calls: Disruptive or malicious calls intended to embarrass or upset the recipient.
• Impersonation: Pretending to be someone else to mislead or cause confusion.
• No time to call: There are some cases when the marketing professional calls an irregular time when people take a rest or are busy at work.

Harassing calls can have emotional, psychological, and even legal consequences for the person receiving them. In many places, some laws prohibit harassment via phone, and individuals who are victims of such behavior can report it to authorities or take legal action against the caller if they do not stop calling even after frequent requests.

Data of Harassing Calls on Women

According to surveys by Truecaller, 80% of women receive harassing and nuisance calls in India. Among them, 52% receive annoying calls SMS, and inappropriate content each week. More than 74% of harassing calls come from unknown people, and confusing staggering calls come from 23% of people, and 11% of calls come from the known people of the user.

Most of these calls are made anonymously with the express intent of bothering a person, otherwise intimidating.

Getting Rid of Harassing Calls/SMS in India

The Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) of 2023 has several provisions that address harassment, including:

1. Section 354A of the BNSS

According to this section, anyone who solicits sexual favors or makes sexually suggestive comments commits the crime of sexual harassment, which carries a sentence of up to three years in prison and/or a fine.

2. Section 354D of the BNSS

This section states that a person will be sentenced to three years in prison and a fine if they repeatedly approach a woman to start a sexual relationship, notwithstanding her lack of desire.

3. Section 507

If someone threatens or intimidates a woman through anonymous communications, they can be imprisoned for up to two years.

4. Section 503

This section tells you about the destruction of harmful materials. Apart from the conviction the court can order the destruction of any copies of harmful evidence, inappropriate materials, food or drug offenses, etc.

If anybody wants to harass someone with inappropriate content or impersonation content, the section tells you about the disposal of seized property. The content must be delivered to the rightful owner, or if the rightful owner is unknown, issue a proclamation describing the property and inviting anyone claiming ownership to come forward within six months. No inappropriate thing can intimidate anybody from doing another offense forcefully.

5. Section 504:

Deals with intentional insult with the intent to provoke a breach of peace.

6. Section 506 of the Indian Penal Code

This section states that anyone found guilty of the crime of criminal intimidation faces a sentence of up to seven years in jail and/or a fine.

7. Section 507 of the Indian Penal Code

A two-year prison sentence will be added to the punishment stipulated under Section 506 of the IPC for anyone who attempts to intimidate or threaten a woman through anonymous communications.

8. Section 509 of the Indian Penal Code

This section states that if someone insults your modesty over a phone call, they could face up to a year in jail and a fine.

To Deal With Harassing Phone Calls, What Should You Do?

• Let the calls go to voicemail to collect evidence.
• You can get all supportive numbers available on the women's support helpline (like http://www.ncw.nic.in/helplines)
• File a formal complaint with the National Do Not Call Registry (.gov) by calling 1-888-382-1222  (TTY: 1-866-290-4236).
• Report the call to ReportFraud.ftc.gov if you lost money or have information about the caller.
• The 181 (Abhayam Helpline) is just for female use. Female counselors are available to take the call and record the harasser's information. The police will then proceed to locate him and file a case against him after receiving the information from the helpline center.
• Another nationwide women's helpline number is 1091. All a woman needs to do to report phone harassment is call this number, and the police will then take the appropriate measures.
• Both males and females can use the general number 100 to report a harassing phone call. It is the emergency calling number to Police in India.

These are the primary ways to get rid of the harassing calls. If you cannot prevent it by any means, you can take legal action.

Protection against harassing business calls

What should you do if you receive harassing calls? It is not a fact that only women will face harassing calls. Anybody can face the same issue. Here is how you can cope with the situation as a common person from getting harassing calls.

However, you have to keep in mind that the offenders and harassing callers may collect numbers from the agents where you have registered your number and name, job portals, and many other sites where you have willfully shared the number. So, intentionally harassing numbers cannot be restricted likewise. You have to take the support of cyber cell or police station support- as the case may be.

Talk to a Lawyer

Raise a complaint to the police station if the harassing calls are not stopped even after frequent requests. You can contact a lawyer to file a case against the numbers calling you frequently even after so many requests. A lawyer can also fight for you and can raise a complaint related to civil damage, destroying peace of mind, and causing emotional distress.

Even though there are rules for filing a complaint against harassing phone calls, there are alternative ways to deal with these problems. Keeping personal information private can reduce the likelihood of harassment from strangers, random stores, and social media. Another strategy used by the majority of Indian women and girls is to hang up the phone, block the number, and designate it as spam.

All of these solutions, meanwhile, are merely short-term fixes that won't prevent the harasser from harassing someone else in the future. Therefore, it is strongly advised that such a harasser be reported as soon as possible and that serious legal action be taken against them to stop it from happening again.

Conclusion

Your local police station, cybercrime department, or a lawyer can give you the right solution according to the complexity of the issue you are facing related to harassing calls. You can contact Online Legal India to get legal assistance as well.