BBC-featured call centre slapped with hefty fine for unwanted calls

Deaf ears

"The public have told us that they are fed up with the constant bombardment of nuisance calls," said ICO director of operation Simon Entwisle.

Yet they only listened to the ICO when they were hit with the fine.

Twice daily callers

Wonder if these were the jokes who rang me up with automated messages twice a day for a year. It recently stopped (finally). Always the same pre-recorded message often from numbers from all over the country.

Will it work?

Save Britain Money, you are an habitual criminal who accepts complaints as an occupational hazard, and presumably accepts ICO fines in the same casual manner. We therefore feel constrained to gently waft this small fine of 0.001% of your operating profit for the year in your general direction.

> " they hide a bigger problem within the cold calling industry. "

The bigger problem is that there is a cold calling industry.

Just so you know....

Here is a list of the directors of the various companies together with their DOB. If you happen to know any of them, then give them a ring on my behalf (preferably at mealtimes) and thank them for all their unsolicited calls.

Save Britain Money - Directors

Benjamin Michael Winchester (19/05/1983)

Jonathan Blakemore (02/12/1961)

Neville Wilshire (09/04/1959)

Osian Llyr Davies (13/09/1978)

We Claim U Gain - Directors

Jonathan Blakemore (02/12/1961)

Marc Standish (19/10/1982)

Neville Wilshire (09/04/1959)

Nationwide Energy Services Ltd - Directors

Jonathan Blakemore (02/12/1961)

Neville Wilshire (09/04/1959)

Roy Davies (05/06/1950)

Jonathan David Wilshire (26/11/1982) (Company Secretary)

Other subsidiaries of Save Britain Money Ltd

BillsCutter Ltd

FuelSwitch.com Ltd

1stFone Limited

Save Me My Money Limited

LeadSale Limited

NES Property Investments Limited

NES Property Developments Limited

Green Deal Direct Energy Limited

HIS Energy Limited

Anyone sniff a rat here?

These clowns are the third biggest in Swansea - there are hundreds of others bigger. Strange that the ICO finaly pull their finger out to fine now they are on the telly? What about all the others?

The worst thing of all this is that we are paying for the buggers as they are funded by the endless green taxes on our power, by the ppi juggernaut paid for by our pension funds ....and on.

Poor show

These guys are amateurs and need to learn from the pros. If you bounce your calls off a VoIP service and over a couple of international borders then only give out the company name of your holding firm outside the EU you can avoid all this bother.

We get hardly any calls, and the few that do turn up are from companies that have some sort of tenuous link to a company with which I've done business, even if its "calling on behalf of...". Invariably that means I'm not interested in what they have to say. One ( Bournemouth area) was decent enough to provide a real phone number on the CLI last time, so they're in the list of companies who get the recorded message without the phone ringing.

The PPI cowboys need to be dealt with though, we have a spare SIM in a mobile phone and for some reason that attracts lots of SMS and the occasional call, which I have a laugh at every few weeks when I pick it up to clear them.

BBC3

> A company that is currently featuring on the BBC3 television programme The Call Centre ...

I've not watched the show, but I saw the trailers and assumed it was a comedy i.e. fiction. Christ I'm getting old.

The responsiblity needs to be on those who can do something about it.

The problem with the whole telemarketing industry is that the responsibility of preventing nuisance calls needs to be places onto somebody who actually can do something about it. Obviously, the telemarketers won't change - this is their whole raison d'etre, so they aren't going to stop. We, the hapless folks receiving the calls have no ability to stop the calls.

The entity that can stop the calls would be the telephone companies themselves. The government(s) need to force the telephone companies to

1) allow subscribers to identify what types of calls they do, and what types of calls they do NOT want to receive (e.g. via a web site you access by phone # and password).

2) Tag the calls by type at the lower level signaling layer (SS7).

3) Block calls as needed, sending a signaling intercept tone (SIT) back to the caller (as well as reporting over SS7) - that's the three rising tones you hear before the "We're sorry, but you call cannot be completed as dialed" type messages).

4) Provide a way to report violations (e.g. a telemarketer identifying as a home phone, usually by those "does U has a fone & computer? Den U kin make $€￡", ideally by just dialing something like *38 (*FU), and automatically capturing the SS7 level signaling (the caller ID can be bogus, but the lower level protocol has to be correct for the call to happen).

5) If the calls are from out-of-area, make the point of demarcation be responsible ("Sorry AT&T, but all those calls from call centers in North Elbonia are coming through your system, you are on the hook (sic) for them.").

Considering moving to an Android phone so I can bounce these calls to voicemail.

I'm so bored of these guys

I wonder if it's the same company that's decided to harass me.

The last ones that called and I accidentally answered wouldn't tell me what company they were calling from. I asked them to take me off their database and never call me again and the guy's response was to laugh and say, "That's it then. You're getting called every day. Every single day."

They always come from 0845 286 xxxx where xxxx varies. If I had an Android phone instead of an iPhone, would I be able to filter these calls out and/or direct them to a recording of my choice?

At the moment I just don't answer, but then I'm concerned that when I go on holiday overseas, they'll be directed to my voicemail and it'll start costing me money.