Context
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has fined a home improvement company £130,000 for making more than 900,000 nuisance marketing calls. Colour Coat Ltd of St Leonards on Sea, East Sussex which provides a range of services including coatings, insulation and roof repairs, made the calls over an eight-month period.
Key points to note
- Following more than 50 complaints from the public, the ICO’s investigation found that a significant proportion of Colour Coat’s marketing calls selling its services, were to numbers that were registered on the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) and Corporate Telephone Preference Service (CTPS) which is for businesses.
- Colour Coat were also found to have repeatedly called people who had asked not to be called again and withheld their phone numbers to prevent people from contacting them.
- Colour Coat didn’t identify itself on the calls or provided false company names including “Homes Advice Bureau”, “EcoSolve UK” and, on one occasion, “Citizens’ Advice Bureau”.
- Natasha Longson, ICO Investigations Manager, said “This company had no regard for the law or for the people they were calling. Businesses employing these tactics are very likely to come to our attention. The catalogue of contraventions we uncovered, as well as the manner in which calls were made in this case, resulted in a fine and a legal notice to stop.”
Next actions
Firms need to keep in mind the requirements of not only the Data Protection Act and UK GDPR, but also the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations.