Road accident nuisance callers fined £270,000 for being absolute sh*tbags A Hampshire company behind millions of nuisance calls regarding road traffic accidents has been fined £270,000 by the Information Commissioner's Office. The ICO's investigation into the business traced more than 22 million automated nuisance calls to Basingstoke-based business Road Accident Consult, trading as Media Tactics. …
"Also it should be the company that has to prove that any of the above was legally sent"
To mis-quote a certain Horace Rumpole, that breaks the Golden Thread of British Justice, and while I can understand your position, it's the thin end of a very large wedge.
Driving above 70mph on a motorway is illegal in the UK. I don't want to be in a position where I'm pulled over by the police, and it's up to me to prove that I wasn't exceeding the speed limit. That's a mild example - I'm sure you can imagine much worse ones.
It always has been "innocent until proven guilty", and it has to stay that way, whatever you think of the offence or the people perpetrating it.
"It always has been "innocent until proven guilty", and it has to stay that way, whatever you think of the offence or the people perpetrating it."
Sorry, but your argument is completely misguided. Innocent until proven guilty does not mean the burden of proof is on the prosecution on every point. Plenty of laws operate this way: for example, if the police stop you and ask to see your licence, you don't get to say "prove I don't have one". Likewise if you are speeding and claim it was because of an emergency, the police don't have to prove no emergency existed.
Obviously you've never been in a traffic court where the onus is often on you to prove your innocence. Standing there and pointing to the magna carta is not going to help.
There are completely different sets of rules and laws for those with money and business who get 1.2p fines and even after being proved guilty don't have to actually pay even that.
If you are prosecuted under the HASAWA, you have to prove that you did everything reasonably practicable to prevent anyone being injured.
Even if nobody has been hurt.
If someone has been injured, it's obvious that you didn't do enough to prevent the injury - but you still have a defence if you did everything reasonably practicable.
So why shouldn't telesales also have to prove that they did everything reasonably practicable to ensure that they never called anyone who didn't give explicit permission?
It's not like it would be hard to keep records of where the names and phone numbers came from and the specific permissions granted.
Well, it WAS always that. Up until the speed camera - which takes a photograph of your car, prints a number on it, and claims that's how fast you were going and that you were driving at the time.
As this won't work if you ask the Camera to actually prove anything, it's assumed to be right unless you can prove it isn't.
Really the burden of proof is on the accused here.
Not true.
The police issue the ticket and threaten that if you try and fight it then they will turn up to court and it will cost you one hell of a lot more. The judges side with the police and basically you have squat chance of winning. People have been convicted of driving faster than their car will actually go!
Nice idea destroyed decades back.
Want to work as a teacher, coach kids, run a dance class for the elderly... then you have to go and get a bit of paper saying you are not guilty.
Its all the same these days. Because they have worked out they can scream terrorist or child molester at you if you object to anything and the bulk of the public believe its all ok when you have nothing to hide the authorities (other people) have or can take as much power over our every day lives as they want.
On the other hand, if this company really was proven guilty of deliberately making bad calls (as against couldn't show it was innocent or had real reason to believe it had permission) then the fine should have been really big--- at least a pound a call.
Off topic for a moment, but the phrase "innocent until proven guilty" has always struck me as rather odd. The "until" sort of implies that it's just a matter of time until proof of guilt emerges, and the state of innocence is simply a temporary inconvenience for whoever is investigating.
I far rather prefer the usage "innocent UNLESS proven guilty"
They should be charged with handling stolen information and a new crime of "willfully using illegally obtained data".
So that's Assange running from the police then. Oh, wait, i mean Assange running from the police for something else as well ...
Slightly more seriously, legislating this is not an easy thing: you can't just say "illegally obtained data" for commercial gain, as selling newspapers is definitely commercial gain. Given the UK government's appalling record on writing legislation that can only be used for intended purpose (antiterror law vs local council, anyone?), i'm not sure this is something they should even try? For clarity, I mean the permanent part of govt, not any particular party - the idiocy that is the Snoopers Charter came up now, but it's predecessor under Mandelson; the classification of school catchment "cheats" as international terrorists could easily have come up under this lot rather than the previous lot, etc.
Change the law, make it illegal (up to 2 years in prison) to share customer data period.
Unless specifically[1] authorised by the customer.
[1] By "specifically" I mean "for each time it's shared" not a "one time tick-box". That would mean that the management overhead of sharing would mean it would only be done on an individual basis not on a mass basis. I do agree with the jail sentance bit though - financial penalties are all very well but as has been discussed, the company involved will declare bankruptcy and promptly reform as a new, slightly-differently named company and continue to do the same thing.
Limited company means limited liability - i.e. if the company goes down the liability for it's debts dies with it. However, the key word is "limited", not "zero". I'd suggest fines for wrongdoing should be transferrable to the shareholders if they're still outstanding at the liquidation of the company. This might make people pay a bit more attention to behaving in a lawful manner when conducting their business.
End of the day they'll still keep at it. As long as there’s a nice fat pay check in it for the directors. I feel some empathy for the staff so I just politely hang up. However I’m finding my patience tested at times. I block the callers where possible.
When I moved house I had to get a new phone number. Plusnet made an utter fanny of this and it took six weeks to get a working phone line and number. In that six weeks the provisioned phone number changed 7 times. When the number finally came through and worked the first call I got was one of these cunts.
>Plusnet made an utter fanny of this and it took six weeks to get a working phone line and number.
LMFTFY
BT made an utter fanny of this and it took six weeks to get a working phone line and number.
They are they same group of incompetent clowns and it will most likely be down to Open your wallett and we Reach in.
bt / open reach. i always tell my customers - if we give them the opportunity to fuck up, they will grasp it with both feet.
true to form, they managed to bork an office's internet connection for a whole day this week when they downgraded us from 5 static ip's to 1.
0 connection. did a trace route, the whole internet dissapears after 2 hops
their "technician" was adamant ...but we can see the router.
of course you can you stupid fuck its within your core network. i cant get to it from somewhere else and we cant get anywhere (useful) from here. i can see your gateway but nothing else
then it was - oh, we will send an engineer out to site to check - if its your fault, we will charge you.
i said, so, whats the likeliehood of it being a coincidental line fault ? last night, you changed the ip of the router. from 6 am this morning, we dont have internet. cant ping anything, cant ping our own ip from external. for fucks sake, what is wrong with your stupid brain you dick?
it will take us up to 48 hours to send an engineer.
DONT send a fucking engineer. the problem lies in the configuration of whatever you fucked up yesterday.
MANAGER PLEASE! MANAGER!
but we can see the router.....
aaaaarghjh....murder death kill
eventually got hold of a manager who flipped us back to dhcp in about 2 minutes. not before a whole day near enough of no network and running off of phone hotspot
I suspect that, if you spoke to me like that I'd stonewall you too.
Flies/honey and all that. Especially as the poor sap you were speaking to probably had no knowledge of your situation, ability to do anything other than read the engineer fault report and little ability to do *anything* other than call out an engineer.
"When the number finally came through and worked the first call I got was one of these cunts."
Interesting. This week I had a long conversation with the BT Indian call centre about them getting engineering to sort out a fault on my adsl line. The next day I received an "International" Indian accented "Windows support" scam call. Haven't had one of those for years.
Made me wonder if there was a connection. Are people with an internet connection problem more susceptible to being "helped"?
I have had several of these scam calls in the last couple of days, both "Windows Technical Support" and a very similar "BT Telecom" fake call. So it may well be concidence that you called a genuine BT call centre in India.
One of them I was able to get CallerID on the call, which I was able to pass on to the cops.
They were all variations on "our servers are getting warning from your computer", leading up to expecting me to download software. I kept asking them if they had the IP address, or the MAC for the network interface and they kept insisting they had a Customer License ID that was "burned in" to my computer.
The first few times, I managed to keep them talking for a few minutes. The last time, they hung up as soon as I spoke. I wonder if they even know which phone number they are calling.
When I was with BT I gave them a unique disposable email address. So far it's received 1420 spam emails. Fortunately they've all been blocked.
Same thing happened with Adobe and Primus Telecom. If you give your details to an organisation with an overseas call centre, expect to be spammed and / or to receive nuisance calls.
Similarly, I give only an 0701 Flextel number out when websites insist on a number, e.g. energy, insurance etc. At over 50p/minute, it doesn't get any nuisance calls !
> People using those websites had agreed to their details being shared with "third parties whose offers we think might interest you".
BULL-SHIT. I am sorry, but I never click to consent for my data to be shared with third parties. Secondly, I don't put my phone number down unless I actually have to (so, insurance primarily, and a select few sites for sensitive/secure stuff).
Yes somehow they keep calling me about my "recent accident" on my mobile, despite the fact I never had an accident in my life, nor claimed on my insurance.
They just dial random numbers and play their automated crap. At one point I would get 3-5 of these calls a day, and it is really frustrating, especially if I am waiting for an important call.
The worst part is if they get busted, they just go "oh, we thought these people consented when we bought the list", when the "list" of every single number they could think of was bought from a shell company most likely owned by these turds in the first place, and then conveniently dissolved so the trail goes cold.
Thanks to voip, I also get "PPI Insurance" recordings from apparently local landline numbers, so I can't even filter them out any more. Also loved the "UK number" call where it was an actual Indian call centre woman who called me about my "recent accident", and actually had an argument with me over the fact I never had an accident. Quickly became apparent she had no idea about UK law or even how the insurance system works here, at which point I hung up.
> Media Tactics has also been given a legal notice compelling it to stop making unlawful calls. Failure to comply with this could result in court action.
Maybe this is why for the last few weeks the calls had stopped. Good riddance. However I know they will just form another company with the existing lists, and carry on again for a few years before that one gets shut down as well, and so on so forth.
Just unplug the landline phone ? I don't even know my landline phone number and the only reason that I have one at all is because I need ADSL.
Yes I get sales calls to my mobile but it's nowhere near as bad as the 4 to 5 I was getting on the home phone every evening. It's also easier to block them and withheld numbers etc.
"The investigation was sparked by 182 complaints made to the ICO's online reporting tool. Media Tactics told the ICO's enforcement team that it had bought data from other firms and believed the people on the lists had consented to being contacted."
Where was the due diligence?
"third parties whose offers we think might interest you".
A generic statement that basically means they will share with everyone.
I bet they shut up shop and start again with another company.
At one point we got a very vague request for permissions letter from the Social Services Department of the Local Council, concerning my mother. They wanted a totally unlimited permission to share her data. It turned out just to be for making an appointment with the local hospital, but the request was to share everything with anyone.
At that time. some aspects of medicine, such as physiotherapy, seemed to be part social-services, part NHS. After my mother died, some of the support services moved from council employees to private companies.
The way Data Protection works seems to have become a sick joke.
to be extremely rude to the caller, when I receive these calls. I know they are only doing a job, but they are well aware that the job is to pester people who do not want their services. I thus hold them guilty by association. Hopefully they will then leave the company, and get a proper job instead.
Sadly, in the UK, it is illegal to use any profane language across any telephone. So, do not swear!
I want to know who the scum are who take this excreta up on its offers?
Let's teach logic and schepticism in schools, perhaps? Sadly that's not going to happen for obvious reasons.
"Sadly, in the UK, it is illegal to use any profane language across any telephone. So, do not swear!"
citation please - i dont doubt you at all, i would like the reference!
Communications Act 2003 section 127 para 1(a) seems the most likely refernce that the PP had in mind:
(1)A person is guilty of an offence if he—
(a)sends by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character;
Icon closest to official UK Judge's outfit -->
"(a)sends by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character;"
Oh .. so people calling asking you to vote for "X", which you find grossly offensive, are committing an offence?
[joke - i do know the difference between offensive and "grossly offensive" in law]
citation please - i dont doubt you at all, i would like the reference!
Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 prohibits sending "a message or other matter that is grossly offensive". I'm sure it could be manhandled into being used to prosecute someone being quite sweary.
It runs the risk of being laughed out of court, mind you...
Vic.
So ... as it is in virtually every enforcement case ... the government takes a small pittance from the "offender" (sorry, I deliberately misspelled donor) and nothing (or close to it) goes to those annoyed or harmed. The reason these guys are left to offend again is that if the government clamps down on them too hard then people will stop doing it and they won't collect as many fines. Like everyone else, the government is in it for profit... only without providing a service to anyone at all (even shitlords who send out spam calls are providing a useful service to shitlords who advertise through them).
We get the same thing in the US. Wells Fargo signs up over 2 million people for bogus products, and the government orders restitution of $5M (less than $2.50 per person)... and takes $185 million for themselves. Out in this area oil refineries spill out excess pollution and the state / federal governments keep the fines just at the point where it's considered a "cost of business," and the people whose health is affected don't even get $2.50. And this is under hardcore left-wing progressive governments in one of the bluest of blue states. A state that is so blue that the other side may as well not even show up to the legislature - the progressives have enough votes to pass literally anything they want and override any objections. So for the usual response that "we just need to get the right out of power"... guess what? Nope. The left sells out even faster and, frankly, with less shame.
And then politically you have one group that supports the scammy businesses and another group that idolizes the scammy government. Ugh.
I bought some phones with call blocking/screening built in. Not had a single spam/scam call now in 6 months. I got some for my mum as she was getting half a dozen a day and now gets none.
Takes a few minutes to set up, and for new numbers it's a single press of either 1, 2 or 3 to allow screened call once, permanently or to deny/block entirely.
Peace and quite at last.
The NHS one drives me nuts. The landline is unplugged due to spam. I disabled voicemail due to spam. I block unknown callers due to spam. I told my surgery until I'm blue in the face to release caller-id before they call (I know they can, a nurse did it once & ditto in a couple of other circumstances).
My theory is not patient confidentially, rather they haven't got a proper telephone setup. They don't "nat" through to a single phone number which comes back to the front desk. You call 'em back on that released number & you're straight back to the phone that called you. I think that's the real reason why.
The system has to transmit the caller ID from the source exchange to the destination exchange because that's essentially a packet-switched network. When it goes to analogue that necessity ends. Caller ID is the default, it's not making the number available to the destination that is special. You pay a little extra to receive it before you answer the phone, or you dial 1471 after the call.
Is he confusing the business line itself with a PBX that might be leased from BT?
"I bought some phones with call blocking/screening built in. Not had a single spam/scam call now in 6 months. I got some for my mum as she was getting half a dozen a day and now gets none.
Takes a few minutes to set up, and for new numbers it's a single press of either 1, 2 or 3 to allow screened call once, permanently or to deny/block entirely."
In the States the spam calls can display on caller ID a number that is not the number they are calling from, i.e., spam call purporting to be from Police Department, or with proper number displayed, but not actually calling from that number. Does this blocking work on the actual number or the displayed number?
>Media Tactics fell short of the mark when it treated consent as an administrative box-ticking exercise. Proper consent gives consumers control over how their information is used. The people targeted by Media Tactics were not given that control.
Isn't this kinda like the cookies that I have no option to decline every time I visit a site hosted in the goddamn EU? Can I start suing websites for tracking me when I haven't explicitly consented - since "you agree by continuing to browse" is even weaker than "you checked this box off"?
I suggested that EL Reg institute a prize every year for outstanding scumabaggery ; These guys should be in there with a real chance.
Suggested prizes:
- Scumbag Steve hat.
- sieve for leakiest website
- tin of insecticide spray for buggiest software
- piece of string for insecurity in software. However, if Adobe is the winner, I believe straw would be more appropriate for strengthening mud-based constructions.
I was pestered by one firm trying to get me to claim damages for whiplash etc. I politely pointed out that the accident involved someone knocking off my wing mirror while I was about a mile away from the vehicle. They said they would remove my details from their list, over the next few months I got several calls every week for the same thing, one day I got 3 calls in the space of an hour. I finally shut them up by saying in a loud voice "I hope you and your children all get cancer" Not nice, but they have now stopped calling me.
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