Maybe the affiliates should also have been whacked.
UK credit broker fined £120k for spamming folk with five million texts
A UK credit broker has been fined £120,000 for sending more than five million unlawful text messages. Digitonomy besieged customers with unsolicited loan offers, prompting 1,464 complaints from privacy-conscious consumers between April 2015 and February 2016. An investigation by data privacy watchdogs at the Information …
COMMENTS
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Wednesday 15th February 2017 19:52 GMT Anonymous Coward
so its high enough to hurt, but low enough that the lowlives won't immediately go into receivership?
Nope. Buying an off the shelf company is cheap enough circa £50, and that's the marginal cost for the bottom feeders. The forces of government could follow up "wilful insolvencies" through the Insolvency Service and the courts, and bring them to book, get them struck off as directors, but its slow and ineffective.
The only real recourse is to prevent directors and shareholders hiding behind limited liability in this way. Government could have closed this loophole years ago, but they're too sluggish and idle. Limited liability is a hugely important concept, and should be protected and encouraged, but at the moment government simply let the status be abused.
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Thursday 16th February 2017 07:46 GMT Loud Speaker
Re: Hefty Price
When I became a director of a company in the 1970's, I was told (by my accountants - probably a slimy bunch, but still) that if a company breaks the law, then it loses its incorporate status, since the contract permitting incorporation is broken, and the directors are personally liable for the crimes. Whether or not that was the case, it certainly should be.
And the directors should be jointly and severally responsible - ie if a crime is committed, they ALL get the full punishment. There should be no punishment of companies - all fines, etc should ALWAYS fall on the directors.
Other than nuking from high orbit, its he only way to be sure. (In the case of spam, nuking from high orbit is an acceptable alternative.
They should be fined the price of an Iphone 7, each, per spam. (And life imprisonment with hard labour).
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Wednesday 15th February 2017 21:47 GMT Rol
Crowd Fund
I honestly believe that a contract killer could raise far more than £120,000 if they pledged to kill the entire board of directors.
In fact if everyone who wished that to happen pledged just £1, the fund would cover the extermination of every rogue company for the next couple of decades.
Now that's what I call taking back control.
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Thursday 16th February 2017 09:18 GMT Anonymous Coward
Give them a "three strikes and you're out" - with the "out" being striking off the company and it's officers, and compulsory winding up of the company, and with the company plus those on whose behalf it sent the offending texts being jointly liable for compensation to the unwilling recipients. And apply the same to direct mail companies using the post.
Oh and come up with standard "opt in" language: "I agree to receive marketing texts from .....", and ensure customers do not have to pay anything for sending that or sending opt-outs, with separate opt-in using different language for anything that might involve a cost. Per promoter, not per sending company/agency.
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Thursday 16th February 2017 11:05 GMT Warm Braw
Re: Snide Comment from Spokesman
Indeed. The claim "having conducted appropriate due diligence" is demonstrably false as the ICO has determined their "diligence" was not appropriate at all.
The fine does, though, seem to represent more than 25% of their net assets.
Tellingly, they're classified at Companies House under "advertising agencies" though on their website they define themselves as a "fintech skunkworks". That's probably all anyone needs to know...
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Thursday 16th February 2017 11:46 GMT Anonymous Coward
Clearly Digitonomy are spamming scumbags
When their spokesman says, "We are sorry that a reported 0.03 per cent of recipients found the SMS marketing messages from our appointed affiliate management company last year unwelcome...", they are basically saying, "a small number of cry babies complained, so we don't think we've done anything wrong."
Herein lies the problem. It's highly likely that an exponentially larger number of people didn't complain, but were still pissed about receiving these spam texts? This kind of thinly veiled 'F-you' dressed up as a pseudo-apology just shows that they are indeed scumbags.
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Thursday 16th February 2017 13:05 GMT Derichleau
So Steve Eckersley says that "Depending on the word of another company is simply not acceptable and is not an excuse." Yet in a recent Assessment that I submitted to the ICO, the case officer was of the view that the UK company that had obtained consent from a non-UK company had obtained consent. Another example that demonstrates that the ICO's case officers are clueless.
Actually, consent only satisfies a condition for processing. Data controllers also have to satisfy the first principle so they should provide you with a fair processing notice before contacting you.
Read my latest article.
webmaster@mindmydata.co.uk
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Thursday 16th February 2017 17:14 GMT Stevie
Bah!
"“We are sorry that a reported 0.03 per cent of recipients found the SMS marketing messages from our appointed affiliate management company last year unwelcome enough to complain to the proper authorities, despite us having conducted appropriate due diligence before they proceeded with their marketing. We remain determined to operate at all times within both the spirit and the letter of the law and best practice.”"
Fixed it for you, you spamming bastards.