Any 'research' company that makes unsolicited cold calls and keeps calling unanswered numbers is either incredibly incompetent or has a sideline selling vacuum cleaners. My wife learned this while working for them a long time ago. Seriously, can you imagine how much time it would waste having to call those numbers plus wait for the answering machine over and over and over and over... Real marketing companies want answers quickly and just skip the no-answer numbers. In the (extremely) rare case where a client insists on including no-answers they _WILL_ leave a message and hope for a call-back since harassment is hardly going to provide a willing victim-er-subject. Even telemarketers hesitate to keep pushing those numbers, and either discard them or reserve them for their most desperate callers.

There is also a federal "Do not call" list, but not all companies are honest enough to bother with obeying the laws. If you are registered on the list feel free to visit this link to file a complaint: h??ps://www.lnnte-dncl.gc.ca/plt-cmp-eng That will also give you links for registering if you aren't.

Btw, although there are exceptions to the law, they are still not allowed to harass subjects by constantly re-calling no-answers.

Hopefully this will help someone.

Cheers.

I googled the number I get lots of these---thanks to these type of boards it stops people from phoning back

Boy, they must have a VERY BORING LIFE if all they can do is spend their time on these ridiculous calls. I answered, no response, yelled Hello a second time and then hung up.

2nd call from "ICBC" this week. First caller was speaking English and we responded in English and advised that we were not interested in any survey. Then Sunday morning, get a caller speaking Chinese advising he is calling on behalf of ICBC. So much for the being polite and advising them that we are not interested. Now it makes me wonder if it's not a scam because after all, everyone in BC must deal with ICBC so a survey from ICBC will have relevance to everyone. In this day and age of scams, Internet phone numbers can be spoofed to look like they are from legit businesses and government agencies. Since this number has been advertised as being from a legit survey company, I'm sure any scammer will figure that out and use it as well.

RE: Joe,
Your phone number is not shared with anyone for the ICBC survey; but once the request is made to not be called for this survey it can take up to 30 days to go into effect. If you got called again by NRG for the ICBC survey more than once in a few days it was probably by mistake, not by design (ASSUMING you told them the first time they called that YOU wanted to opt out of the survey -you can't opt out for somebody else if you're not the person being surveyed- and presuming you made the request in an UNambigious manner - There's no benefit to them calling you any more than they have to, and as long as you make a clear request for yourself, NRG and other reputable research companies are only too happy to comply. If your number was disclosed by ICBC, your number can only be used to contact you from NRG Research on behalf of ICBC for that survey. Don't believe me? Then ask ICBC themselves - Survey research is not telemarketing - they cannot and do not sell your number- but ICBC does want to get your feedback IF you want to give them feedback on the service ICBC provided when you dealt with them, or bought their Autoplan insurance products.

these f*ckers are wack, burn the building

I am disappointed that ICBC has released personal information for data mining companies. I do believe the analyst at NRG and NRG is paid a commission for each completed survey. The questions are quite personal and when I refuse to answer I am given 'strong feedback backtalk' by the analyst. Note, that I did request to be removed from their solicitation list and requested no further calls. NRG has called several times since. Following my request to be deleted from the call list, a subsequent call was made to our telephone number and answered by a member of our family, without asking for permission to conduct the survey, questions regarding ICBC were asked, my family member replied in French and this frustrated the NRG analyst, who subsequently hung up.The ICBC claim to follow Privacy Act provisions and not to release information appears to be bogus.
I do believe the 'call lists' have been 'marketed' to other telemarketers and as recently as the call today, shortly thereafter I receive a telemarketing call for a 'cruise' and another call later in the day for Airmiles. During the past week, we have also been called for WestJet promotions. We have not flown WestJet in the past 2 years. Do I believe it is a scam, yes. I do believe ICBC should stop this practice of 'outsourced telemarketing' as I strongly believe this is a waste of ICBC revenue. Rather than waste revenue, ICBC should use the regular media, advice they have stopped this practice, and waste of money, with money saved to reduce the insurance premium. I also believe ICBC had the monopoly on insurance and that the insurance market should be open to all other insurance underwriters.

I've got them already on my 'blocked caller' list, they phone even on sundays. scumbags. told them already twice to get lost and not phone here anymore since I am working graveyards. My response to such disturbing calls is extremely unpleasant. In these times with all the spams, scams, phishings, frauds...NO ONE will give any info away to unknown phone numbers. they can say whatever they want 'who they are'. No proof. The only thing I found about this number are complaints all over the internet.

I along with many others are leary of unsolicited phone calls. They are a niusance and I for one do not answer them. The unsolicited numbers are easy enough to google so why don't these companies just say who they are. They are a PAIN.

Same as above. No one there yet they keep phoning!
Who is this person?

Why thank-you, Your Majesty.
So when you scream at people on the phone it's because you're such a philanthropist? Very big of you. Keep it up, champ. "It's impressive to see a man feeding off his emotions."

So...having had experience in the field, allow me to explain a few things.  The system the company uses relies upon a database of some form.  As to the information released to this company by ICBC, who knows.  In any event, when the database is exported a call list is made.  These call lists can have well over 10,000 numbers to call.  Because the system is run via VOIP protocols, the realm of Long Distance charges doesn't exist.  Also, it's standard to have the ability to set caller ID numbers.  A name, and/or a number, or nothing at can be displayed.  Then a person just sits at a desk with a headset/mic and waits for the system to find a "live" call.  Automatic filtering for VM, hence no msgs.  When a live call is identified a display with whatever data exported from the database comes up on the screen.  Your name, the name of anyone living in your household, address...literally anything could be on there.  Take this matter seriously, unless you've signed a release for your personal information.

I put them on my block-calls list in my cell, 4 calls in as many days.

Keep getting phone calls from this # - have not answered one call yet, but they never leave a message

I love this part from the ICBC website "If you are contacted by an NRG representative, please be assured that these surveys are legitimate, and are permitted under Protection of Privacy legislation. Your identity will not be revealed without your permission. "  They already knew my name. Phone number.  So it appears my Identity was given out to NRG by ICBC....   which they state on their own website that it will not be revealed without my permission, but I never gave ICBC permission to give my name and phone number to NRG.