UK watchdog fines biz £130k for 900,000+ direct marketing calls to folk who had opted out
- Reference: 1624531626
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/06/24/ico_colour_coat_fine/
- Source link:
Colour Coat of St Leonards-on-Sea made almost 970,000 connected calls between 1 August 2019 and 31 March last year, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) found, of which more than 452,000 were to folk or entities registered with TPS or the corporate equivalent.
The [1]ICO said it was tipped off to the company's practices when it received more than 50 complaints from unsuspecting cold-call casualties. This included repeated calls to people that told the company not to contact them again.
[2]
The matter was complicated by the fact that Colour Coat – which provides roof and wall coating, roof cleaning, spray insulation, and flat roofing services – withheld its telephone numbers to prevent people from contacting them, in contravention of Regulation 21 (A1) of the Privacy and Electronics Communications Regulations (PECR).
[3]
[4]
Colour Coat, [5]incorporated in 2016 by Callum Henry Jones , also used a variety of false company names, including the Homes Advice Bureau, EcoSolve UK, Citizens Advice, and sometimes failed to confirm its identity entirely, flouting Regulation 24 of PECR.
Examples of the call content provided to the ICO by the complainants ranged from them lying, being rude and aggressive, to just hanging up when challenged. Listed examples are [6]here [PDF].
[7]
In addition to the fine of £130,000 – which is significant considering Colour Coat filed net assets of £35,997 in abbreviated profit and loss accounts filed for its year ended 31 October 2019 – the ICO issued the company with an [8]Enforcement Notice , meaning it must cease and desist the things that got it in trouble.
[9]Papa don't breach: UK data watchdog fines that other pizza place £10,000 over unsolicited marketing blitz
[10]Conservative Party fined one-third of a luxury food hamper by ICO for nuisance email campaign
[11]UK data regulator fines American Express up to 0.021p per email after opted-out folk spammed 4.1 million times
[12]Scottish National Party members found among list of names signed up to rival Alba Party after website whoopsie
[13]UK watchdog fines two firms £270k for cold-calling 531,000 people who had opted out
"This company had no regard for the law or for the people they were calling," said Natasha Longson, ICO investigation manager. "Businesses employing these tactics are very likely to come to our attention. The catalogue of contraventions we uncovered, as well as the manner in which calls were made in this case, resulted in a fine and a legal notice to stop."
Longson said that some of the people that complained reported that the cold calls made them feel "annoyed" or "anxious". ®
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[1] https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-and-events/news-and-blogs/2021/06/nuisance-calls-land-home-improvements-company-with-a-130-000-fine-from-the-ico/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YNSsHGtVc9wrF4a0VhSjgwAAAIM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YNSsHGtVc9wrF4a0VhSjgwAAAIM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YNSsHGtVc9wrF4a0VhSjgwAAAIM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/10405998/filing-history
[6] https://ico.org.uk/media/action-weve-taken/mpns/2620022/colourcoat-ltd-mpn.pdf
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YNSsHGtVc9wrF4a0VhSjgwAAAIM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://ico.org.uk/media/action-weve-taken/enforcement-notices/2620023/colourcoat-ltd-en.pdf
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/16/papa_johns_ico_fine/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/03/conservative_party_fined_one_third/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/20/amex_fine_50m_spam/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/29/alba_party_website_error/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/15/cold_call_ico_fines/
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Cost of doing business or a fine?
"if my napkin maths skills are still up to scratch"
They're not.
Re: Cost of doing business or a fine?
Ok my friend, I reached for my Casio FX-991EX and as I did it I realised the figure I got was calls per pound. That means for a pound they could make ~6.92 calls.
The actual cost per call was 0.14p which is quite cheap and answers my question. It's not a fine ladies and gentlement, but good ol' cost of doing business!
Re: Cost of doing business or a fine?
To be fair, having read the headline, the first paragraph and second paragraph of the article several times, I've not the first clue how many calls were made. It's enough to confuse even a very large napkin.
Re: Cost of doing business or a fine?
ICO fines are paid into the treasury and become general government funds (in the same way as taxation). They are not kept by the ICO.
Another ineffective fine
Yet another fine on a company which will just fold and reappear under another name, and carry on as before. The fines should be on the Directors, not the Company.
Re: Another ineffective fine
^^^ That!
Re: Another ineffective fine
What's the problem getting a patsy as a director?
Re: Another ineffective fine
Directors can now be prosecuted. This hopefully is the first step.
lying, being rude and aggressive, to just hanging up when challenged
You've already told us they were doing marketing calls...
Why would you go out of your way to try to contact people who expressly tell you that they don't want you to contact them, and don't want to do business with you? I can't understand the mentality.
Approach me without consent and I will blacklist your company and any service you offer.
Do so in a non-innocent manner, and I will literally go out of my way to report your company (to places like the TPS, etc.) and get you in trouble.
So why would you bother? I simply can't believe that enough people who were on the TPS already then said "Oh, yes, so you're phoning unsolicited even though I've specifically opted-out of such communication and it's illegal, but now that you mention it, I *do* need my roof doing and I won't hold it against you at all" to make it profitable to do so.
"Hey, we have a list of people who literally don't want to do business with you"... I know! I'll ring them all and piss them off, that'll get me more business!
It is an unfortunate fact of life that there is a portion of the population who can be coerced into accepting a contract, even if they have no use for it and don't want it.
That is why we need laws to catch the bastards who try anyway.
> Why would you go out of your way to try to contact people who expressly tell you that they don't want you to contact them
It does seem very strange indeed, but it actually works if you totally and utterly disregard anybody else's opinion .
That's not me being sarcastic (for once...), I actually talked with a sales guy of that persuasion once, trying to understand just this. He clearly didn't care, or wanted to even think about his victims' clients' wishes, his one and only goal was to make a sale , even at gunpoint. Thrill of the chase and all that I guess.
Now there was also an internal rationalization going on ("I would do them a disservice to not insist") not unlike that of rapists: "I know she likes it, so sod the cries and fake tears".
They are dangerous sociopaths with absolutely no empathy, and saying you don't want to play is just issuing a challenge to them.
(Most appropriate icon)
Some people will agree after you try sufficient number of times, just to be left alone. They will treat the loss as a cost of getting whoever was calling them off their backs.
What else they can do? If they call the police, they'll be fobbed off. If they call Trading Standards, they will be told, to not pick up the phone. Maybe they'll ask a solicitor how to get a some sort of restraining order? But then how do you know who do you put it against?
When you get all this potential hassle in mind, the option to pay may be the cheapest one.
Problem is that in many areas our frameworks are defunct and encourage such behaviour.
" Why would you go out of your way to try to contact people who expressly tell you that they don't want you to contact them "
Ignorance. Not contacting people on TPS involves getting a copy of TPS, getting someone to merge against the contact list you've bought, and remove the relevant entries. Or you can just load the contact list you've bought into the autodialler and have your agents say "oops, my bad" when the end contact complains.
Hiding phone numbers, telling porkies
You misrepresent yourself, you are automatically filed in "shyster".
You are a liar, and a potential thief.
970 thousand calls and only a £130k fine ? Okay, but put the CEO in jail for criminal activity. He knew what he was authorising.
It is high time we took to task the people who have ultimate responsability. Enough molly-cuddling companies who actively ignore the law.
Re: Hiding phone numbers, telling porkies
The problem with that is that if all the law-breaking directors get punished, the Tory party donations fund might suffer...
Re: Hiding phone numbers, telling porkies
However, they could also go up, as the "donors" won't be able to spend their our hard-earned cash as easily from the inside.
Time for prison sentences for the directors, no point in pussyfooting around with fines against a soon to be dissolved/bankrupt company, directors should be personally liable on pain of imprisonment to avoid them claiming the 5 bed executive house he/she lives in actually belongs to his/her spouse or partner. The one thing they can’t lay off is their physical person, that should be the forfeit.
Surely drawing, quartering and boiling in oil would be a more appropriate penalty?
Boiling in oil? I think you will find that baking at 250C in a salt and hay crust with a wild garlic puree would be a more modern, healthier method ...
Epic title error
Title - 90,000+ calls.
Start of the article - upwards of 900,000 calls.
Later in the article - nearly 970,000 calls.
Call it what it is - nearly a million calls .
Re: Epic title error
Perhaps more were made while they were writing the article?
Said it before, I'll say it again. What's needed is legislation to enable recipients to be able to dial a code, say in the 147x range to register a spam call. Once sufficient complaints have been made their telephone account is credited with a fee - more if the number is TPS registered, which is charged to the caller plus a handling fee. The call arrives from a different network - that network gets charged and can pass on its own handling fee and tough on them if they don't keep tabs on where the call comes from. Abuse would be limited PDQ by credit control of the caller's telecoms provider.
In practice the threat of this and the cost of developing the systems to set it up would be such that suddenly the insoluble problem of controlling it by the telecoms industry would suddenly be solved.
A well deserved ouch
While this does seem like a puny fine, we have to look at it in the light of the company's assets - basically ICO has fined the company three times its worth as of 2019. That is going to sting like crazy! If the company does declare bankruptcy to try to avoid the fine, the sole director is likely to find himself personally liable for the entire lot.
Cost of doing business or a fine?
That's about £7 per call if my napkin maths skills are still up to scratch. Will I get at least a fiver or who pockets that cash?