Nuisance call-blocking firm fined £170,000 for making almost 200,000 nuisance calls

A firm that sells nuisance call-blocking systems is itself nursing a £170,000 fine from the UK's data watchdog, ironically for cold calling almost 200,000 people registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS). Brighton-based Yes Consumer Solutions Ltd (YCSL) failed to check its marketing list against the TPS, and as …

[Anonymous Coward]

Until the poor sods that got rung up get some money

This is just an industry reach-round ....

[Anonymous Coward]

That fine isn't getting paid. Anyone want to give me odds on the company declaring bankruptcy, all the directors resigning and joining Yes Amazing Solutions Ltd, which has mysteriously acquired offices, equipment, and a marketing database from somewhere...

[IGotOut]

Directors can now be directly jailed for non payment of fines with regards old calling

However you still have to go through the motions first.

[Doctor Syntax]

Yes, they're obviously a load of motions.

[gandalfcn]

Thank god for el Reg and dodgy wit, sadly lacking elsewhere.

[Duffaboy]

Only if they can find them

They will most likely be hiding offshore some where

[Blofeld's Cat]

Er ...

I'm not sure which part of this is the most bizarre:

- A supplier of nuisance call-blocking systems doesn't understand that a cold call made without the recipient's explicit consent is a nuisance call.

- The sole director of the company bought the contact list from a liquidated marketing company they used to be the sole director of.

[Robert Grant]

Re: Er ...

The latter point is particularly good. We should've screened the data better from that company we... just came from?

[sitta_europea]

I'll be very suprprised if the fine is paid.

More likely all that will happen is that another insolvency will be posted at Companies House, and another company will start up with the same assets. Again.

[Pascal Monett]

In Luxembourg, if you are the general manager of a company that goes insolvent, you are forbidden from ever being a general manager in any Luxembourg-based company again.

Generally there's a limited amount of siblings and cousins an incompetent idiot can call on (and who will agree to take the fall), so I rather like that law.

[Dwarf]

Public floggings

Perhaps if they cant pay, then their directors can be educated via another route that might be more memorable ?

[gandalfcn]

Re: Public floggings

The old bent over in a barrel trick?

[Doctor Syntax]

AFAIK there are powers in the UK to deal with a banned director operating through through proxies like that. Assuming those whose names are on the notepaper know about it they'd be in trouble as well.

[Alan Brown]

There are, but experience is that getting those who need to pay attention to actuially PAY attention is difficult

[teebie]

"188,493 unsolicited direct marketing calls" "helped 12,000 customers "

Congratulations, that's an almost -1,500% success rate.

[Anonymous Coward]

It appears that "TPS" is just as useless and futile as the "Do Not Call" list here in the US.

[Robert Carnegie]

Well, no power companies have phoned me today to offer to switch from my current power company, so that's something. But it's only 9:25am.

[Jim Whitaker]

Mostly, TPS seems pretty good. Obviously we have crooks (and incompetents) just like anyone.

[N2]

TPS

Run by a marketing company?

[Anonymous Coward]

TPS useless

TPS (run by marketing wankers)

is fucking pointless.

They want so many details about the company that phoned you, which in most cases is impossible to get from the twats phoning you.

so your complaint is immediately invalid, due to not being able to get the directors shoe sizes.

[Alan Brown]

Re: TPS useless

Don't bother notifying TPS, just go to the ICO on it

[TheProf]

28 days later

"Phoning individuals registered with TPS for longer than 28 days is a violation of electronic marketing law"

Wow! I'd have hung up long before that.

[gandalfcn]

Re: 28 days later

Keep them coming.

[Anonymous Coward]

£170,000 ?

So we're talking about less than £1 per call? Telemarketers can handle that as a cost of doing business expense.

The fine needs to be more like £100 or even £1,000 per call.

Then we can see about making it stick and maybe getting some of it back to the callees.

[Ken G]

Re: £170,000 ?

I don't know, they will have a very low conversion rate for blind calls and a low profit per call.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: £170,000 ?

"I don't know, they will have a very low conversion rate for blind calls and a low profit per call."

Fuck the conversion rate, the fuckers need to pay for all the fucking harrasment they do.

We are not talking about fining just for a cut of the fucking profits, it needs to fucking hurt.

i.e 100 times the fucking profit.

(strange you are worried about their profit, you a director of it?)

[Alan Brown]

Re: £170,000 ?

The UK needs to use the USA's Telephone COnsumer Protection Act as a template

for people called: $500 _PER CALL_ statutory damages - collectable against both the marketer AND the company that hired them (tripled for wilful violations such as breaching TPS)

On top of that the FCC can impose fines of $11,000 per call (again, tripled for wilful violations)

The director of the FCC was quite open that this was intended to cause offenders to go out of business via the death of a million paper cuts

[elsergiovolador]

Fined?

I would say invoiced, but then fines are not tax deductible. Still, that sounds more like just a cost of doing business rather than deterrent.

[elsergiovolador]

Premium

All private phone numbers should be premium. At least you'd be paid for listening to marketers.

Calls could be free of charge if coming from the contact list.

[Steve Davies 3]

I'd sentence the directors

to one month in the public stocks.

There would be long queues of people wanting to get at least a bit of pyrrhic revenge.

[elsergiovolador]

Re: I'd sentence the directors

No they should be required to meaningfully answer 200,000 nuisance calls.

[gandalfcn]

Re: I'd sentence the directors

Bending them over in a barrel would be interesting. No KY allowed.

[Alan Brown]

Re: I'd sentence the directors

publishing their names, phone numbers and private addresses might be a good dissuader for continuing

[Shoe]

These types of operations are outright frauds and should be dealt with as such. The damage they cause to their elderly victims is immesurable (mentally, not just financially). These operations (which have been going for years) slip between the gaps because they're not considered big enough for police to deal with, and Trading Standards don't have the resources to catch them. Well done to the ICO for doing something, but it's just a slap on the wrists. Until they are dealt with properly

[fidodogbreath]

Be the change...

[Anonymous Coward]

"..., whose sole director at the time of that company's liquidation is now sole director of YCSL, "

How is that even possible?

[fireflies]

Acronym Soup

So to summarise, YCSL got a list from YMSL, did not check TPS; the ICO cited PECR, PDF linked?

[Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese]

Re: Acronym Soup

TL;DR

[gandalfcn]

Dear Vultures, hate to be a Grammar Nazi but "between October 2018 to October 2019."? It's between .... and, and from.... to.

Next you'll be saying metric tonnes like the Grauniad.

[Allan George Dyer]

Be honest...

@gandalfcn - "Dear Vultures, hate to be a Grammar Nazi but "

Come on, you're enjoying it, or you would have used the corrections address to report discretely.

Full disclosure: I did chuckle at your comment and upvote it, so I'm to blame for encouraging you.

[Richard Pennington 1]

Re: Be honest...

discreetly.

[Allan George Dyer]

Re: Be honest...

@Richard Pennington 1 - Well caught, but I was using the alternate definition:

dis-Crete-ly In the manner one might make disparaging remarks about a Greek island.

Honestly.