14 DAY TRIAL // UK's Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) announced today that it fined two companies with £160,000 and £90,000 respectively for making 1,73 million nuisance calls to numbers registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) do not call list.
The two companies disregarded regulations although it is illegal for all organizations (from political and privately owned to charities) to make direct marketing phone calls to people who registered their phone numbers on the TPS register.
Moreover, DM Design Bedrooms Ltd from Cumbernauld, Glasgow, received a £160,000 fine for making roughly 1,661,607 unsolicited phone calls to TPS registered individuals from April 1 to November 30, 2017.
The ICO also found that DM Design made repeat calls even though the individuals contacted by the company requested to be removed from their marketing lists.
Because of DM Design's spam campaign, both the ICO and the TPS received 99 separate complaints which were the starting point for the investigation that led to the company getting fined for not screening its marketing phone call against the TPS do not call list.
Both fined companies have been ordered by the ICO to stop all illegal marketing activity
This is not the first time DM Design was fined by the ICO given that it also received a civil monetary penalty of £90,000 for breaching regulation 21 of the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 (PECR), the same regulation infringed upon in 2017.
The other company fined £90,000 is Solartech North East Ltd based in Middlesbrough, and it managed to make 74,902 marketing calls between May and June 2017 to individuals who opted out from receiving such calls.
"Making marketing calls to people who are registered with the TPS is completely unacceptable, and we will take robust enforcement action against firms that are contacting people without their consent," said Andy Curry, ICO Group Enforcement Manager.
The ICO issued enforcement notices to both fined companies which made unsolicited calls for direct marketing purposes ordering them to stop all illegal marketing activity.