Energy firm slapped with £50k fine for making 1.5 million nuisance calls

A UK firm offering people energy-saving solutions has been fined after making almost 1.5 million unsolicited calls without checking if the numbers were registered on the UK's opt-out database. Southampton-based Home Logic used a dialler system to screen the telephone numbers that it planned to call against the Telephone …

[Colin Bull 1]

Different planet

The ICO also pointed out that subscribing to the TPS register for 12 months is £2,640, which is "much cheaper than a fine for making nuisance calls".

This is a moronic statement. If they had a licence and used it they would not have been able to call 1.5 million people. What is the choice?

Can we get some real regulators that make punitive fines please.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Different planet

The real scumbags just subcontract the calls to one of the many companies in India that will do the calling for them,

No TPS rules apply.

The ICO does not seem to be able to act in these cases.

When I get these calls, I simply ask "how's the weather in Mumbai? Is it raining cows?"

Scumbags the lot of them.

[Oh Homer]

Re: Subcontrcting to Indian call centres

Actually the TPS does apply there too, if the company that hires the call centre is based in the UK, which it most likely will be if it's serving the UK market.

The main flaw in the TPS, other than the fact that so many companies simply ignore it, is the fact that your listing is not permanent, and it's too easy to be removed from that list without realising it, simply by ticking the wrong box, or failing to tick the right one, whenever you buy something, sign up to some service, or do anything else that involves handing over your personal information.

There desperately needs to be a better alternative to the TPS, where your listing is permanent until you directly contact the TPS to explicitly remove your listing, regardless of whatever other boxes you tick or don't tick on third-parties' forms, so these third-parties have no way to override your TPS status.

Another problem is that BT seems to be less than eager to help those afflicted by nuisance calls, and indeed actively helps spammers by providing them with fake "presentation numbers" which it knows for a fact will be used to trick victims into believing the call originates in the UK.

As far as I'm concerned, using a "presentation number" is just fraud and should be illegal, and BT should be forced to provide victims with the full details of the spammers assaulting them so they can take legal action, but they mostly refuse to do so because these spammers are also their best customers.

[macjules]

Re: Different planet

I just put them "on hold" .. beside a speaker playing Back In Black at volume. 5 minutes of that and I don't get called again... wonder why?

[Mage]

Re: Different planet

Also fine the Board & the senior executives personally. The £50K isn't even a slap on the wrists, and the customer will pay.

[veti]

Re: Different planet

No, if they had a licence and used it they would only have been able to call 1.4 million people. That seems like a reasonable choice to me.

I also think the fine is not as paltry as some seem to think. Do the maths. They're selling "home energy solutions", which translated into real words seems to mean "insulation, mostly, plus a smattering of other stuff to make it sound sexier". What do you think their sales conversion rate is? I'd be quite surprised if they got much more than 5000 actual sales, out of those 1.5 million cold calls.

But what they would get is 50,000 "prospects" (aka "timewasters"), and maybe 20,000 "obligation-free quotes". Creating and following up all those is a fair bit of work. So thinking about the cost-per-sale - we're already talking several hundred pounds before a single actual tile has actually been ordered, much less delivered or fitted. And the market is reasonably competitive, so the margins on the "delivery and fitting" process can't be all that fat to begin with.

Altogether, 50 grand probably represents quite a big bite to them.

[bombastic bob]

Re: Different planet

"Can we get some real regulators that make punitive fines please."

how about authorizing EVERYONE who received such a nuisance call to give one punch in the nose, each, to anyone held responsible. 1.5 million punches in the nose oughta be a nice DIS-incentive for this kind of irritating self-serving nuisance...

[Anonymous Coward]

What was the alternative?

Not making any calls during the extended period of downtime?

Wouldn't that financially ruin any telecom-company?

[Roger Lipscombe]

Re: We need a secure caller display system

"Wouldn't that financially ruin any telecom-company?"

Yes. Your point?

[Oh Homer]

Re: We need a secure caller display system

If I knew anything about phreaking, and assuming such a thing is even possible, I'd build a gadget that forces the POTS network to give up the CLI regardless of the caller's intent (surely the network operator must have this information, otherwise it wouldn't be able to connect the call). No more "INTERNATIONAL", "UNKNOWN", "OUT OF AREA", "WITHHELD" or any other bullshit.

I'd also find a way of obtaining the customer database of all "presentation numbers" and match them back to the real subscriber number, along with a reverse lookup table of all other numbers and their associated customer details, so that the Caller Display would not only show the real number calling, but also a company/personal name, and extension number if applicable (yes, the latter would also involve hacking every PBX in the world).

It's pure fantasy, of course, but it's #1 on my telecoms fantasy hack list.

As to why ... if someone is calling me, not by accident, then they know my name, telephone number, and probably a great deal more. As a matter of principle I therefore demand the right to know at least as much about them as they know about me, before I decide whether or not to accept their call.

I really don't think that's an unreasonable expectation.

As a bonus for my fantasy hack list, I'd like some means of automatically hacking in to any offending autodialers, and even human operated telemarketing systems, that assault my phone, and utterly brick them somehow, whilst identifying the company directors by name, then hacking all their personal records and transforming them into personae non gratae that will never again be able to even hold a bank account, let alone operate a company.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: What was the alternative?

For starters they are an Energy provider, not a telecoms company

Second, they could of fixed the fault?

[FlossyThePig]

Re: What was the alternative?

@Lost all faith...

Second, they could of fixed the fault?

It's "have" boy not "of"

Remove the word "could" and does your sentence make sense?

You could use "could've" but that implies you know what an apostrophe is.

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: What was the alternative?

You could use "could've" but that implies you know what an apostrophe is.

And have a supply of suitably non-feral ones.. Damned hard to train, those apostrophes..

[Tigra 07]

"they know that calling people on the TPS register is against the law and that we will come down hard on them if they don't respect the public's right to privacy"

A 50K fine is fuck-all and nowhere near a deterrent to these plebs

[Roger Greenwood]

Exactly - the fine should be related to the number of calls/complaints. £100 per complaint would do it - half to the person called to encourage reporting.

[Anonymous Coward]

I suggest that the 50k fine should go the CEO personally, and not to the company.

[Anonymous Coward]

I suggest that the 50k fine should go the CEO personally, and not to the company.

I'd make that into £1/call so it's proportional to the offence, and to the CEO and company owners in a manner that they couldn't walk away from it by a simple bankruptcy and moving to a new company they have already set up for exactly that purpose, because that's what is happening now when companies get fined.

Or, better, mandatory jail sentence if the fine exceeds a certain value, but that merely creates a cut off point for these people.

Maybe it's better to mandate that they are not allowed to own a phone line for two years without the number being published on the Internet where every double glazed salesman can find it, even from India.

[DJV]

double glazed salesman

Totally agree...

...apart from the fact that I don't think I've ever seen a "double glazed salesman". However, given some of the tactics used by many of the salesmen in the double glazing industry, sealing them inside double glazing doesn't sound like a bad idea!

[Just Enough]

"I suggest that the 50k fine should go the CEO personally, and not to the company."

".. And in this year's company annual report you'll see we paid the CEO an additional £50k, in recognition to him assuming the new role of "Chief Executive of Fines"."

[Anonymous Coward]

More so

considering it wont EVER be paid.

Fucking joke.

[Missing Semicolon]

90 out of 220?

That's seriously bad availability.

And because "We couldn't check" isn't a valid defence, there is no incentive for the TPS to actually do it properly.

These guys were just unlucky to get caught. What did all the other TPS-using marketing companies do? Just stop calling? Yeah, right.

[Jamie Jones]

Re: 90 out of 220?

How do you know the fault lied with TPS?

I assumed the fault was with the "energy company". If the TPS had been down for everyone, we'd have heard a lot more about it.

[Adam 52]

Re: 90 out of 220?

TPS is a subscription service, you have to do your own screening against the data so there is no real concept of TPS being down.

So the ICO is being a little disingenuous with its cost of compliance.

There are various companies offering screening services. At 2p per call it's about the same price as the fine (3p per call). So you might be tempted to play the odds and hope you don't get caught.

That said, the ICO did warn people at the start of the year that it'd be clamping down.

[samzeman]

Fines should totally be on a percentage-revenue basis, so that it stings any company equally. e.g google does something bad, gets fined £15mil, startup does something bad, gets fined £15k.

[Anonymous Coward]

Make sure you follow the company ownership up the tree as well - otherwise the scum will just start up hundreds of new companies with virtually zero revenue.

[katrinab]

100% of revenue calculated using money laundering rules, so each owner / director of the company is treated as having received all the money individually.

[CertMan]

Spawn of Satan

I'm on the TPS but I keep getting calls along the lines of "We need to make you aware of a new government scheme...."

Because they withhold their number the TPS won't investigate.

Now, I know that I could "press 2 to speak to one of our operatives", in order to find out who they are, but (a) that would tell them it's a real number that answers (b) it might cost an arm and a leg

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Spawn of Satan

Answering a call on a UK landline will never incur a cost. It's only if you ring them back that you are liable for charges.

If you get to the stage where you hear the 'press 2' option, you might as well press it. Then just put the phone on a table and walk away - you tie up their resources for 30 seconds or so until they realise you're not there, thus saving some other person from the distraction.

[Cynical Shopper]

Re: Spawn of Satan

I tried this once - it responds with a message along the lines of, "We'll call you back later".

Some time later, a human calls you up saying you requested a marketing call. It's all to get around the TPS "survey" loophole - which I informed the human that we both knew was the case. He said, "Why did you press 2 then?", to which I responded, "I wanted to know what company to avoid giving any business to."

[bombastic bob]

Re: Spawn of Satan

""I wanted to know what company to avoid giving any business to.""

I would prefer "I wanted to know who to report to the FCC over violating the 'do not call' list" then inform them to NEVER CALL YOU BACK AGAIN.

/me really HATES telemarketers, especially the ones who ignore the 'do not call' list and use robo-dialers and won't pick up on their end, so I can't swear at them properly. I want to quote that line from 'Demolition Man' where Stallone's character needs toilet paper... "You @#$-brained @#$-faced duck-@#$%^ @#$%-busting" etc.. Actually I want to find out where they live... [edit: not to break any laws, of course. no way! Send them a nice postcard at Christmas time or something]

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Spawn of Satan

"If you get to the stage where you hear the 'press 2' option, you might as well press it. "

That invariably simply registers you as being interested and someone will call back some time over the next few days. It rarely results in being transferred immediately to a live human.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Spawn of Satan

"Because they withhold their number the TPS won't investigate."

No, but OFCOM will.

https://ico.org.uk/concerns/nuisance-calls-and-messages/spam-texts-and-nuisance-calls/

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Spawn of Satan

No, but OFCOM will.

And therein lies the problem. Even amongst the tiny subset of people who'd like to complain, a tinier still subset know who to direct the complaint to. The regulators don't work well enough to provide automatic cross referrals to the responsible regulator when a complaint comes in to TPS, Ofcom, ICO, or whoever. And its the same in enforcement, that when a regulator issues a fine to a fly-by-night outfit, they don't automatically refer the director's behaviour to the Disclosure & Barring Service (to ban dodgy directors) and the Insolvency Service (to pursue any unpaid debts or fine through individuals or related companies).

We have in place a regulatory system of comprehensive coverage and immense powers, but because it is fragmented and the individual regulators and enforcers are incapable of working seamlessly with each other, the outcomes are far less successful than they might otherwise be.

[Headley_Grange]

Re: Spawn of Satan

Most people are so pissed off with cold calling that they just slam the phone down, and reporting is a pain in the neck, even if you know either the number or the company. How difficult would it be for BT to set up automatic reporting - just hit, say, 2868, during the call and it's automatically logged as a nuisance call. They should be able to do this even if the sender withholds their number, given that the call comes over their network.

BTW - I bought one of those call-blocking phones and I haven't had a cold call since.

[Gerry 3]

Re: Spawn of Satan

It's existed for years: it's 1477, Automatic Call Trace.

But good luck in getting it activated on your line, the call centre drones will deny all knowledge of it.

[Steve K]

Re: Spawn of Satan

The regulators don't work well enough to provide automatic cross referrals to the responsible regulator

The TPS is not a regulator as such - it is a self-regulation scheme/sop run by the Direct Marketing Association, with no connection to government, but against which DIrect Marketers are legally supposed to check.

This explains why TPS do not really make it easy to complain about various dubious practices, why TPS opt-outs are so non-permanent unless you are very careful, and that the only cross-referral is a URL or two pointing to ICO/OFCOM.

A scheme independent from the vested interests of the (direct) marketing industry and the phone companies (or maybe the ICO or OFCOM doing the full job themselves...) would be far more sensible.

Which is why it does not happen.

[Alan Brown]

Re: Spawn of Satan

"No, but OFCOM will."

Except they don't. I've been down this route.

What they _write_ and what they _do_ are entirely sperate animals.

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems like these fines are not so much how many times they broke the rule but roughly how long it took to investigate, hours x wage + a bit of rounding to the nearest 000.

Is there a regulator to investigate the regulator?

[Oh Homer]

Re: "Is there a regulator to investigate the regulator?"

Yes, it's called the House of Lords Select Committee on Communications.

[wiggers]

You have to question their intelligence...

If someone has gone to the trouble of registering with the TPS, what are the chances a cold call will result in a sale? The call will be received as an unwelcome intrusion and immediately negate any chance of the sales pitch being viewed positively.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: You have to question their intelligence...

If someone has gone to the trouble of registering with the TPS, what are the chances a cold call will result in a sale?

Logically that ought to be true, but the fact that these companies continue to do it says otherwise.

[bombastic bob]

Re: You have to question their intelligence...

ack, it's purely a numbers game. they'll irritate 999,999 people to get that ONE sale.

[Jamie Jones]

Re: You have to question their intelligence...

When they lost their TPS access, I assume they thought it better to risk it, on the assumption that the majority of number dialed would not be TPS registered, and potential sales would be more important than potential complaints.

You make it sound like they exclusively targeted numbers that were on the TPS...

[Bill M]

1 minute in prison per phone call

1 minute in prison for each illegal phone call for all the directors should suffice.

During 1,024 days in prison they may reflect on things and not break the law again.

[Anonymous Coward]

I miss the good old days.

When you could trace the number back to a UK company and lookup the director's phone number via Companies House or whois queries. One call to them (at a suitably inconvenient time) and you'd never hear from their company again.

Nowadays we use a BT Call Guard landline phone (no subscription required) set to only permit calls from the address book. Any inbound caller not listed is call screened automatically. Unknown / International callers have dropped from daily to monthly at most.

Mobile is a different beast - I'm stuck receiving endless calls (regarding your "recent car accident") thanks to yet another *!"@ somewhere in the claims management chain selling my details on after a car accident last year.

[IDoNotThinkSo]

Re: I miss the good old days.

Your 'recent car accident' calls are nothing to do with a recent car accident, unless they actually have the full details.

They call everybody. I get them despite having about 20 years claim free.

I always ask them whether they mean the Rolls-Royce or the Ferrari.

[Oh Homer]

Re: "I get them despite having about 20 years claim free"

I get them despite never having owned a car, or even a license.

[TheTor]

Re: I miss the good old days.

FYI, you can register your mobile number with the TPS too...

[Alan Brown]

Re: I miss the good old days.

"FYI, you can register your mobile number with the TPS too..."

That doesn't stop a lot of the calls.

[s. pam]

What an utter joke

Those 1,500,000 calls in terms of being slapped with a fine of £50,000 means the company was fined £0.0333333333333333 per call.

Or, put another way, Fuck All

[John G Imrie]

Re: What an utter joke

I'd rather make fines based on a percentage of the highest paid board members total remuneration package * the number of calls.

That should make share holders look at fat cat salaries.

[Jamie Jones]

Re: What an utter joke

I hate the cold calling industry. As far as I'm concerned, it's the same as spamming.

However, the legal situation is that is against the law to call those on TPS. I'm assuming the vast majority of those numbers called were not.

Does anyone have a rough idea of what percentage of UK numbers are on TPS? My totally unscientific thinking suggests it's quite low...

[graeme leggett]

Re: What an utter joke

According to their website, the current list (and all it contains is telephone numbers) is "23,453,098 records"

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: What an utter joke

"According to their website, the current list (and all it contains is telephone numbers) is "23,453,098 records""

So broadly speaking, every home phone line in the UK?

[veti]

Re: What an utter joke

To put it in context, there are about 33 million landline phones in the UK. (According to OFCOM.)

But the TPS can also contain mobile numbers. There are a whopping 92 million of those. (Go figure.)

So those '23 million' - assuming they're all current, and remember that since the TPS is trying to sell itself to companies they have an incentive to, e.g., keep numbers that they know are long since disused - represents about 20% of the total market. Which is more than I would have guessed, but a lot less than "every home phone line".

[s. pam]

Re: What an utter joke

Here, have an upvote for that cheerful reminder, or put another way, it'll only cost them £0.00213191451296 per call based in the fine to spam all those numbers.

[Jamie Jones]

Re: What an utter joke

23 million? Blimey. I don't believe that. As anon. says, that's actually the total number of residential lines in the UK.

Thanks. (By the way, I did try googling for it, but got nowhere)

[NanoMeter]

Part of the marketing budget

They probably included the £50K fine in the marketing budget before starting the nuisance calls.

[Tubz]

£50K that they will never see as the company closes it's doors and opens back up down the street under a different name, fine should be made payable by the company directors !

[s. pam]

Just like Kebab houses that fail health inspection

[bombastic bob]

adding 3 or 4 more zeros onto the end would be more appropriate of a fine. but I like my "punch in the nose" idea a whole lot better. More personally satisfying.

[Steve K]

Can I replace your idea with a wedgie for each transgression?