Come on, at least find out if they paid the £40000!
Stop calling, stop calling... ICO goes gaga after home improvement biz ignores warnings
A Welsh home improvement firm has been fined after ignoring a warning to stop contacting people who had opted out of marketing calls. In March last year, Swansea-based Direct Choice Home Improvements was handed a £50,000 fine after 167 people complained about nuisance calls. On top of the civil monetary penalty, Blighty's …
COMMENTS
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Thursday 15th February 2018 09:12 GMT Cynical Pie
Re: Why would the show up for just £400
Not strictly true, fines are capped at €20m or 4% of turnover, whichever is greater.
As this is a private company they could use the % and so in theory fine them way north of €20m if their turnover allowed it.
Its also worth noting that while the ICO currently has the power to issue MPNs (not fines) up to £500k at present the fine here was imposed by the courts and beyond the ICO's control.
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Wednesday 14th February 2018 15:12 GMT The Mole
From the ICO report
"Criminal penalties are imposed by the courts and not the ICO. Direct Choice had paid off £40,500 of its previous civil fine. The ICO has recently been informed that the company has applied to go into liquidation and will be working with the Insolvency Service on recovering the outstanding balance."
Not sure anybody is going to see this as a deterrent though if the punishment is so low - though that may be that they chose to use the lowest possible court who can't impose significant fines.
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Wednesday 14th February 2018 18:52 GMT Doctor Syntax
"The ICO and insolvency service need more powers to not only veto liquidiation of such companies but also to ensure company directors are prevented from phoenixing anything."
ITYF the insolvency service has those powers.
Also, it's about time that directors were tried directly. I'm pretty sure that while a Ltd company limits shareholders risk it doesn't shield against criminal behaviour.
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Wednesday 14th February 2018 15:51 GMT Warm Braw
Re: Bigger teeth
ban the current bosses
It's not just the bosses - their staff are equally culpable for their collusion. This is supposedly a review of the place from an employee perspective:
Would recommend anyone to work here who isn't shy and likes a challenge. I worked here for a period of nearly 6 months and was treated like family. The workers were really friendly. Such a fun atmosphere with good incentives every week and prizes to win. Direct choice are a very welcoming company and help you to reach your targets.
If they were spamming as many people as claimed, they'd certainly be aware of the hostile response from their victims and presumably happy to view it as a "challenge" that might net them a "prize".
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Wednesday 14th February 2018 16:49 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Bigger teeth
"If they were spamming as many people as claimed, they'd certainly be aware of the hostile response from their victims and presumably happy to view it as a "challenge" that might net them a "prize"."
Presumably some of those employees were job seekers sent along by a Job Centre. Refuse the job - or quit - and they are likely to have their benefits reduced/stopped.
Personal high principles are all well and good - but hard to uphold if government policy then makes you and your family homeless.
Such companies are always attracted to areas with high unemployment.
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Wednesday 14th February 2018 17:10 GMT Sir Runcible Spoon
Re: Bigger teeth
If the jobcenter places you in a job where you believe you are being asked to break the law, then you have every right to complain about it and get the JC people on the case and get you something else, or add some weight to the penalties being imposed.
There must be a law where 'incitement to break the law' is a crime?
Mind you, if none of this is possible that wouldn't surprise me at all these days, it seems we didn't just throw the baby out with the bathwater, we burnt the house down as well.
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Wednesday 14th February 2018 17:58 GMT Scroticus Canis
Re: "There must be a law where 'incitement to break the law' is a crime?"
It's called conspiracy and used to be used quite a bit*. However it has been under scrutiny of the Law Commission for some time and appears to have fallen out of favour. Not sure if it's still on the statute books or not.
There is also a civil version 'conspiracy to commit fraud' which should be applicable now if they are still making marketing calls while the company is going insolvent.
* not always in a good way unfortunately
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Wednesday 14th February 2018 19:16 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: "There must be a law where 'incitement to break the law' is a crime?"
"It's called conspiracy and used to be used quite a bit."
IANAL
IIRC it was a very convenient law that could be used on fishing expeditions on people marginally related to people being investigated. It was a serious offence in the letter of the law that appeared to require nothing in the way of evidence except "association". Thus facilitating an arrestable offence search in the hope of turning something up.
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Wednesday 14th February 2018 16:01 GMT Anonymous Coward
It's about time the ICO fined "Green Deal Funding". They are behind an "international" recorded message for double glazing. I'm on TPS and have been getting it several times a week for months. The "rogue" number web sites have lots of entries for them.
Have even reported the mobile number they apparently use to call back if you press the "contact" button. Twice the call centre have promised to remove me from the list - and still my mealtimes are getting interrupted. That same number is on the "rogue" call web sites for unsolicited cold calls for "Green Deal".
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Wednesday 14th February 2018 17:05 GMT Not also known as SC
I've given up on the TPS. I now have a landline phone which allows you to either force the caller to respond to a screening message or simply to block the number. If get home from work and find a number I don't recognise and that didn't leave a message it goes straight on the block list. I've gone from about 10 nuisance calls a day down to less than two or three a week.
Edit: As the numbers are blocked the phone doesn't even ring - hence no interruptions.
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Wednesday 14th February 2018 21:33 GMT handleoclast
Twice the call centre have promised to remove me from the list - and still my mealtimes are getting interrupted.
A couple of years ago I started getting a shitload of calls/texts for Amanda Softwoman (name has been changed so I don't embarrass Mrs Hardman). From the content she had either applied for a payday loan and got her phone number wrong when she gave it to them or some "friends" of hers applied for a payday loan in her name and got her phone number wrong. No, it wasn't "friends" of mine because this was a backup phone with a PAYG SIM that I'd never given the number of to anyone.
I did the obvious things. Telephone Preference Service. Some web site I don't remember the name of (I think it was something like USUB) that gets your number taken off compliant SMS lists (I checked it was for real, first). Both helped, but the calls kept coming. So I'd explain the situation (No, you can't speak to Mrs Softwoman because this is not her phone and never has been so please remove me from your list) and they said they would. And still the calls kept coming.
One day, in desperation, I told them they couldn't speak to Mrs Softwoman because she was dead. They apologized and said they'd remove name. Did that a few more times and the calls pretty much dried up. Down from 10 or 20 texts/calls a day at its worst to maybe one or two a month.
Only one of them asked why I had the phone if she was dead. I explained it was because she wouldn't give me the phone when I demanded it from her, and that's why she was dead. Yeah, I was in a shitty mood at the time. Upon reflection, it probably wasn't a wise thing to say, but a year later and still no visit from the plod, so I think I got away with it.
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Wednesday 14th February 2018 23:55 GMT JimboSmith
Payday loans
I received a call on my new mobile number from one of the loan firms that require you to have a guarantor for the loan. They too were looking for someone else had apparently applied for a loan from them. I said that I wasn't that person and that I was glad they'd called because I wanted to ask a question. I said I'd spotted a flaw in their business plan in requiring a guarantor. If I did need to borrow £5k my guarantor would doubtless be chosen as someone who actually had £5k to spare. The guarantor was therefore taking a lot of risk for sod all reward. So why did I need this firm and their 50% interest rate when I could borrow the money off the guarantor at say half that interest rate saving me money and generating them some?
Bloke was very quiet for a few seconds and then asked if I needed to borrow £5k to which my response was no thank you.
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Thursday 15th February 2018 10:07 GMT Pirate Peter
only way to do this is make the directors liable for the whole fines and banned from being a director, and each time they commit the same offence (regardless of company name) the previous fine is doubled and length of the ban doubled
while they can hide behind a company and walk away and start up again the same day under a different name they will not stop
too much lip service is paid to data protection with just the odd "look what we did" big fine published to justify the ICO and make it look like they are working for the people (B******ks)
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Thursday 15th February 2018 12:18 GMT SonofRojBlake
My recent strategy with sales calls
"Hello, is that Mr. Blake?"
"Speaking..."
"[blah blah blah blah blah]".
"What are you wearing?"
(usually they hang up, but sometimes...)
"What?"
"What sort of clothes do you have on?"
(mostly they've hung up, but recently one hardy soul queried...)
"Why do you want to know what I'm wearing?"
"How am I supposed to masturbate to the sound of your voice if I can't picture you in my head while I'm doing it?"
...
I'm not sure where I'd go next with this approach because so far nobody has made it past that last line without a stream of heavily-accented invective followed by hanging up on me. And oddly, the rate of unsolicited calls to my number has *plummeted* since I adopted this approach.
I can report this approach works AT LEAST as well on men as it does on women, and anyone preparing to have a go at me for anything related to sexual harassment should consider that these people rang me, not the other way round.