Hazards of prank calls experienced by Police Minister Mbalula

Christelle Colman, CEO of Europ Assistance.

Yesterday (9 May 2017) the Police Minister Fikile Mbalula witnessed first-hand the irresponsible hassle of prank phone calls during his visit to the Midrand Police call centre (10111 number), which has brought the growing issue of hoax calls made to emergency call centres into the spotlight. Prank phone calls can directly result in serious injuries or loss of life as valuable time is wasted while call centre agents are kept on the line when people who are in real need of help try to call in.

This is according Christelle Colman, CEO of Europ Assistance South Africa, who adds that during certain peak times as much of 50% of the calls made to one of the Europ Assistance call centres based in Johannesburg are prank calls. “As emergency assist numbers are usually free call numbers, we find that prank and dead calls peak during school holidays, when children are believed to be bored and are the main culprits.”

She explains that prank calling is when individuals consistently phone the same number and either put the phone down, or give no response on the other side of the phone when answered, also described as dead calls. “Then of course we find individuals, as was the case that Minister Mbalula experienced, who call in and think it is funny to either report a hoax incident or just report something that is clearly not an emergency.”

The time spent wasted on these fake phone calls is extremely concerning and it is imperative that people start using emergency numbers responsibly so that these services can do what they are meant to do – save lives, says Colman. “I really believe we can change this terrible scourge by doing public awareness training on the seriousness of the matter. We also call on parents to educate their children about the work done by the emergency service call centres and stress that this must not be seen as a silly game.”

The purpose of free emergency numbers is to be able to provide a swift response to people in an emergency situation, where the caller’s life or other people’s lives are at risk, says Colman. “The system is already overstretched and by adding fake phone calls to the already busy call centre is an unnecessary and inconsiderate waste of everyone’s time – from the call centre agents, to the emergency response teams and the actual real victims themselves.”

The phenomena of prank calling is by no means unique to South Africa and Colman says that extensive research is being conducted within the Europ Assistance Group to see how new technology such as artificial intelligence and chat bots can assist in filtering out the prank calls to free up the lines to ensure that emergency response teams can focus their energy on real emergencies to save lives.

“At Europ Assistance our agents are trained to assist in life-threating emergencies and dealing with prank calls simply goes with the territory. They are also trained to filter out the real emergencies and deal with those in the most efficient manner possible. Unfortunately, answering call after call that is not a real emergency call can be extremely demoralising and we therefore need to reach out to the public and ask that they allow these men and women to fulfil their extremely important duties,” she says.

One can imagine dealing with, what can sometimes be, very stressful situations is already taxing on these emergency call centre agents, she notes. “When the general public, the real users and beneficiaries of these emergency assist lines, respect the purpose of the services, the emergency response teams can be left to do their jobs to ensure that lives are saved,” Colman concludes.