ICO fines spam slinging financial services biz

A financial services company that illegally dispatched tens of thousands of spam messages promising to help the recipients magically wipe away their debts is itself now a debtor to the UK’s data regulator. Oldham-based LADH Limited was fined £50,000 [PDF] by the Information Commissioner’s Office late last week for sending more …

[Roj Blake]

Debt Relief

Maybe they could ask someone for help with their debts, or consolidate everything into one handy monthly payment?

But they'll probably just declare bankruptcy and set up under a new name.

[sanmigueelbeer]

Oldham-based LADH Limited was fined £50,000

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, wheeze, HAHAHA ... Oh, wait. Seriously? £50K ONLY???

[DJO]

Actually that's comparatively high. For 31,000 text messages that comes to well over £1 per infringement while most previous fines worked out to just a few pence per message.

Of course the odds of them actually paying the fine are not particularly good.

[Missing Semicolon]

Last throw of the dice

The company is already about to be struck off the Companies house register. It has never filed anything but initial accounts with only seed-corn money in it.

[Anonymous Coward]

No opt-out?

Glad to hear a spammer is getting nailed. But I have to challenge the statement that there's no opt-out in any of the messages. One of the two quoted texts says:

"Check if you qualify text HELP or Stop2Stop."

If I'm reading that poorly-punctuated line correctly, replying "Stop" would be an opt-out. (Whether a company that didn't do opt-in would listen to the opt-out, however, is highly questionable.)

[captain veg]

Re: No opt-out?

Ah, bless.

-A.

[captain veg]

There are people in the ICO?

I rather imagined that some office cleaners just poked a keyboard and responded for laughs.

They've done precisely nothing at all before before now.

-A.