Data dealer slapped with £80k fine after flogging info for nuisance calls Data-broker Verso has been ordered to cough up £80,000 after failing to tell people exactly what their info would be used for. The fine is the first handed down by the UK Information Commissioner's Office as part of a wider investigation into the data-broking industry. The Hertfordshire-based biz, which celebrates itself as …
While it is possible for females to have typically male names, I'm guessing the directors have testicles to lose. Publicly available information on the current Directors of Verso Group (UK) Limited (which is listed as the fined entity on the ICO website)
Patrick Blake
11 Jan 2011 ⇒ Present day (6 Years )
Director
Pankaj Dhanuka
1 Jun 2014 ⇒ Present day (3 Years )
Director
Daniel Hawkins
1 May 2012 ⇒ Present day (5 Years )
Director
Anthony Hawkins
13 Feb 2012 ⇒ Present day (5 Years )
Director
Kishore Saraogi
1 Jun 2014 ⇒ Present day (3 Years )
Director
Dene Walsh
10 Nov 2015 ⇒ Present day (1 Year )
Director
I agree it sounds a bit low, but there's an easy way to make it hurt more & pound the lesson home. Make that amount *per unwanted call* & suddenly it becomes a very big deal indeed.
80K per spammy call generated by their actions multiplied by HOW many million calls?
*Maniacal cackle*
a single large fine generated by a regulator can be contested.
Giving a right of private action with mandatory statutory damages per breach is a far more savage punishment and the regulators can simply sit back and watch these outfits suffer the death of a billion papercuts.
The TCPA effectively killed junk faxing in the USA because of these provisions (Some fax spammers moved into email (Sanford Wallace amongst others), some tried to soldier on by building a secession of shell companies and fake business locations (fax.com) - but they got tracked down and nailed with large penalties. Others tried being offshore and discovered that didn't work either.)
ok, puny fine, but, here nuisance calls are getting bolder, more often, and no respect for the so called "no call list", or for cellphones, both being supposedly off limits.
And of course, fake caller ID, etc.
Complain to the FCC? have you seen their form? it's so long and intrusive that the whole nuisance of the situation gets multiplied.
It would be SO easy to just honeypot these callers and then chase them upstream, could be an automated thing.
oh well...
You do have it in the USA. The TCPA has been in existence for over 20 years, was clarified in 2006 and 2008 and there's a national do-not-call registry.
Don't worry about the faked caller ID. That moves it from $500 to $1500 claimable per call as a wilful violation - the law makes both the call centre AND the company they advertise for liable, so let them make their pitch and get as much information as you can to identify, then file in small claims.
Yes, the FCC forms are a PITA, but you don't need to use them to make a small claims filing - and at $1500 a pop it's a worthwhile hobby.
Wakey, wakey... Companies like this don't give a f**k regulators: Either jail them or go after their home (eminent domain style), or plain just give up!
"Businesses need to understand they don't own personal data – people do and those people have the right to know what is happening to it and who is likely to be contacting them for marketing."
Where this kind of deliberate and sustained abuse is concerned, the pretence that it's all been done by "A Company" rather than by an individual or individuals running it and benefiting from it needs to stop.
The regulator can "fine" any company it wants but all it's doing is censuring an entity that exists only on paper and until such time as those responsible for it decide to close it down. As was the case with Prodial Ltd., where God knows how much taxpayers' money went into an investigation which culminated with the issuance of a £380,000 fine that the regulator, the company's owners, and every commentard on here knew would never be paid.
Scum which sets out to systematically profit from the abuse of others should be as subject to punitive treatment as any common thief or thug, with personal assets seized to fund the cost of the investigation their activities provoked and any balance left over to subsidise their stay in whichever establishment they're then housed at Her Majesty's pleasure.
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