back to article ICO fines telco £100k for 3.2m mobile phone text spamhammer

The Information Commissioner's Office has fined Fareham telco Onecom Limited £100,000 for sending spam texts. The unwanted messages for mobile phone upgrades were sent between late 2015 and June 2016. The ICO received 1,050 complaints about the spam campaign. Although 944 of the messages did not identify the company, the ICO …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Doesn't surprise me ...

    Dealt with them a few years ago ...

  2. djstardust

    P.S.

    We're going bust later this week to avoid the fine but will be back in business with a slightly different name next week.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: P.S.

      Companies house shows one of their directors as having over 50 active directorships (of a total of 155). Lots of businesses only trading for short periods...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: P.S.

      We're going bust later this week to avoid the fine

      Certainly what we've come to expect, but a look at Companies House shows that in 2014 and 2015 Onecom were raking about £10m a year of profit after tax on turnover of around £55m. They can certainly afford to pay the fine.

    3. sitta_europea Silver badge

      Re: P.S.

      Phoenix companies were my number one pet hate until I had protracted correspondence about it with the relevant Minister of State a few years back. He said there was no evidence that this sort of thing was a serious issue. Of course he was lying. So I transferred my number one pet hate to Ministers.

      Pleasingly, shortly after our correspondence, that particular Minister was sent to prison for lying:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Aitken#Libel.2C_arrest_and_prison

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "In a statement, the business said: "Onecom operates in a highly regulated sector and is utterly committed to upholding the highest standards in all our communications with our clients and the public. Consequently we consider this incident to have been most serious and have undertaken an internal review which has resulted in our further tightening our systems and controls to ensure that there is no repetition. We are pleased to note that no subsequent complaints have been received and that the Information Commissioner has acknowledged our remedial measures."

    Which translated from insincere grovelling PR drivel:

    "We will endeavour not to get caught and fined next time and instead will use a shell company out of Belize for all future marketing campaigns"

  4. Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse

    Behold... Vikings!!!

    Spam spam spam spam,

    Spam spam spam spam,

    Spam spam spam spam,

    Spammity spam,

    Oh spammity spam...

  5. adam payne

    "In a statement, the business said: "Onecom operates in a highly regulated sector and is utterly committed to upholding the highest standards in all our communications with our clients and the public."

    So committed you sent spam.

    "Consequently we consider this incident to have been most serious and have undertaken an internal review which has resulted in our further tightening our systems and controls to ensure that there is no repetition. We are pleased to note that no subsequent complaints have been received and that the Information Commissioner has acknowledged our remedial measures."

    A review that makes the ICO think you are doing something and to hopefully reduce the fine.

    Same time next month with a different company name?

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    True story ..

    Onecom lost out in a tender for a major UK financial services company.

    They sent one of their directors to talk to the CEO on the golf course, like some shoolgirls Mum.

  7. Alistair
    Coat

    cheep at thrice the price

    less than a penny per text. Cool Beanz Bro.

    1. A Non e-mouse Silver badge

      Re: cheep at thrice the price

      Beat me to it. At that price, companies can just factor the fine into their business model.

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