14 DAY TRIAL // The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office continues to issue monetary penalties for companies that break the law. On Monday, the ICO announced that it fined Manchester-based Tameside Energy Services Limited with £45,000 ($67,000 / €52,000) for bombarding people with unwanted marketing calls.
Initially, the ICO proposed a fine that was double this amount, but the penalty was reduced because of the company’s financial situation.
According to the ICO, Tameside Energy Services Limited, a company that offers services that improve energy efficiency, made a large number of unsolicited marketing calls to consumers between May 2011 and January 2013.
Over 1,000 complaints were filed against the company in this period. One of the complainants, an 80-year-old woman, reported receiving nuisance calls even after asking the company to stop what they were doing on 20 separate occasions.
Besides failing to remove people from their call lists, the company also neglected to check if the individuals they were contacting were registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS).
“This is not the first and will not be the last monetary penalty issued by the ICO for unwanted marketing calls. These companies need to listen – bombarding the public with cold calls will not be tolerated. Were it not for the company’s poor financial position, this monetary penalty would have been £90,000,” said Simon Entwisle, director of operations at the ICO.
“We are continuing our work with the industry, government and other regulators, including OFCOM, to co-ordinate our efforts to tackle this problem. We would like to see the law changed to make it simpler for us to punish companies responsible for repeated and continuous breaches of the law,” he added.
Those who receive unsolicited marketing text messages and phone calls can use the online reporting tool set up by the ICO to file a complaint.