Glasgow firm fined £150k after half a million nuisance calls, spoofing phone number, using false trading names A Glasgow-based company is facing a £150,000 penalty handed down by the UK's data watchdog for making more than half a million nuisance calls about bogus green energy deals. The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) fined DialADeal Scotland Ltd (DDSL) after an investigation found that it had targeted numbers registered with …
The famed Scottish publication The Daily record reported on the 5th of September 2021 that 'In an interview with a local Facebook site in Helensburgh in March this year, McCuaig was described as a “fashion influencer”.
In other (alleged) news, in conversations with several people who wish to remain anonymous [1], a large proportion of these [2] purported that McCuaig is a “Total waste of space”.
:-)
[1] Protecting my sources. [2] 51% of participants agree.
That's a question I asked myself and a number of Trading Standards organisations a couple of years ago when I tried to pursue a builder who'd run off with some money.
I ended up spending a week collecting useless information from the sh*tsh*w Companies House who eventually admitted via email that "they take details offered in good faith and don't check the validity".
Anyone that relies on such a crock of misinformation is doomed, which is why these crims can cheerfully carrying on trading and destroying peoples' lives.
I am on the TPS list, and still get a lot of green deal, insulation fitting and oven cleaning calls, although the latter seems to have dropped off recently. However, since the caller ID number is spoofed and any company name they give is likely to be false too, how do you know who to complain about to the ICO?
The obvious fraud ones - "I'm calling from BT/Microsoft..." I normally respond to with "[Do you sleep well at night knowing| Does your mother know] you spend your days [committing fraud | as a petty criminal]". They normally hang up.
Alternative responses include "Which one, I have several", "What's a computer?" and "I have a VCR...".
That's if you even feel like responding in English, rather than whatever pseudo-French you can remember from your school days, farmyard noises, or even a quick Google search for a fax machine soundbyte.
As mentioned in this article, some companies specifically target people on the TPS list, so I'm not sure there's any point to being on it. I don't have a handset on my landline, but my mobile number which I've had for decades receives a spam call maybe once every three months if that, usually robocalls about my recent car accident which I didn't have. Not on the TPS. I try to be selective as to who I give the number to and keep my fingers crossed.
One day last week I got a call stating that my Social Security Number was involved in criminal activity and a warrant for my arrest was going to be issued. I pushed the number to speak to a real person, and when one came on the line I gave him a piece of my mind before hanging up.
For the next two days, I got the same call, from different numbers, every 20 minutes. They certainly taught me to know my place, never again will I engage anyone on these calls, I'll simply hang up immediately.
I would think that this type of case would be classed as criminal harrassment or threatening behaviour or whatever the Guardian readers allow us to call it this week.
If not then the system is even worse than I thought it was.
Worst case scenario, phone the police and tell them you are one of the Guardian's favoured minority groups and that this is a ''hate crime'' as opposed to a normal friendly crime against a lot of people, which can be safely ignored.
It is definitely illegal. The problem is that nobody wants to investigate it. The police don't know who it is and don't have the resources or desire to focus on a crime where you were harassed when there are larger crimes to deal with. Those regulators who do have that kind of crime as their particular remit frequently delay taking the necessary action, don't find their victims, or sometimes completely ignore all the reports.
Fines and financial liabilities are nothing more than a theoretical inconvenience if you have a private limited company or limited liability partnership that can be shut down at a moment's notice.
If a company doesn't have enough money to pay the fine (or any other debt), then the directors aren't liable, and the liability of the shareholders is strictly limited to the share capital if they haven't paid it into the company already - which is rarely more than a couple of quid or so.
You will see people on this forum and elsewhere jumping up and down saying that the directors become liable if it can be proved in court that they mismanaged the company, but this never happens. Extensive lobbying by directors of large companies over many years has made that almost impossible, otherwise they would risk being jailed for the sort of corporate scandals that frequently appear on the front pages of newspapers.
The lack of personal responsibility for GDPR infringements, and the flaccid enforcement by the ICO, almost looks intentional.
I can count the number of companies that have ceased trading after a data leak on the fingers one one nose.
Especially when they actually go on raids when Very Important People have their data leaked!
The income goes straight into their (overseas offshore) pockets. The fine goes against a fly-by-night company.
Anyone can set up a company (buy them off the shelf indeed).
Then move on when that gets stifled.
A banned director will set up their cousin/mother/in-laws as directors of the next Phoenix
Not fined but have their assets seized and be put in prison. Nothing else works. For decades they have just changed to another company name and carry on without a pause. Putting money and property in a different name should make no difference.
If our esteemed gov wants to look like it is doing something useful then for fuck's sake get this done. I doubt it would have any negative fallout whatever most people's political leaning. ( With the possible exception of the Guardian readers and the BBC.)
32. On 4 June 2020, the Commissioner applied to Companies House for disclosure of the home addresses of the two directors of DialADeal.
On 9th June a new company SIMPLE LEAD LTD was incorporated by, yes you've guessed it, the same two directors at the same address...
They tried to close and phoenix, however:
Companies House records seen by the Sunday Mail show that on May 15 this year, both McCuaig and Kirkpatick tried to have their company “struck off” but that action was stopped seven days later by the ICO.
Score one for the ICO this time.
So now they will be the directors of an insolvent company, there is then a chance the Insolvency Service will ban them as directors (if investigated properly).
There are a few problems though:
1. They don't do that with a lot of companies, making this a somewhat rare option.
2. If these people are banned as directors, they can find someone else to be the director while they continue to operate the new company.
3. The only consequence if they're penalized, which is not guaranteed, is that they're not allowed to direct a company. They do not serve a sentence or even pay the rest of that fine.
A new law adding these things as a crime resulting in personal penalties could do a lot for those who conduct it in the country. It may not be as effective against companies running everything from a different country, but I'd rather deal with half this stuff than all of it.
Two options
If you have a landline get a phone with bt call guardian or similar service, only numbers in your phones address book will get straight through, everyone else has to identify themselves and most call scams won’t.
On a mobile block all unknown numbers calling - iPhone this is built in, I think you need an app for Android. My phone sends all unknown / withheld numbers straight to voicemail. If it important they will leave a message.
But the whole point of registering with the TPS is that you shouldn't have to construct your own whitelist of numbers. Many people can't do this anyway - it would effectively block new numbers e.g. from Social Services or NHS who may need to contact you.
It won't go away until Ofcom get serious about enforcement, and I don't think they are really bothered.
Agreed.
And when the real person tells me who they are (i.e. doctor's surgery), I explain why I gave them the silent start. I have _never_ had anyone be anything other than understanding about the tactic.
One day it will be a smart scam merchant, at which point I will ask what their mother thinks about how they earn a living. No, wait - I'll ask her myself next time I see her working a street corner.
Yup, I'm very sympathetic to scam callers
on top of the extremely harsh fine, the individual involved should have also been given a long-term, say, 2 hr detention order (suspended immediately for good behaviour) for attempted fraud, no?
I see, this would have been too harsh indeed!
It will never happen, because one thing leads to another, and it could end up with a director of a UK multinational being personally held to account for the actions of the company they control.
Since this sort of accountability would put vast numbers of our MPs and noble lords who bulk out the paltry chump change they get for their parliamentary duties with some fat directorships in potential jeopardy, they are hardly likely to propose or vote for this kind of naive crack-brained commie nonsense.
"It will never happen, because one thing leads to another, and it could end up with a director of a UK multinational being personally held to account for the actions of the company they control."
I used to work for a pharmaceutical company. The directors were always inclined to grumble about the costs of doing business and they hated the constant complaining from the scientists that products had to be thoroughly tested and shown to be safe and effective. There were occasions where some director or other would try to influence people to launch products that were "marginal" just so they could try to recoup their investment. They didn't care that someone could go to jail because the person going to jail would be a scientist that they saw as a lackey.
Then the FDA changed the rules, introducing "strict liability" that mean that the directors were personally responsible for the safety and efficacy of all of their products. Overnight the business changed suddenly money was no object, every product was to be tested thoroughly, suspect products were taken off shelves, side-effect monitoring (pharmacovigilance) became a well oiled machine and we IT bods were busy creating systems to contain, analyse, and present the data.
It's amazing what fear can achieve.
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They should publish the director's home phone and mobile numbers. I have a few Energy Deals I would like to talk to him about at 2am on a Sunday morning.
And "March 2020" makes me laugh. My TPS number has been getting a few of these in the past couple of months. I generally "Put them on hold" while I "get the boss". Find them some nice music to listen to. Something gentle and calming like Crass.
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