Re: £750 per referral, about £1 per person fine
@Ian Johnston it's not a meaningless comparison. Of course there's no way they'd get a 100% conversion rate.
But the fine is still proportional to the number of prospective customers who were contacted in an illegal way. Therefore the fine per lead (converted or otherwise) is still in the region of £1.31 per illegal correspondence.
Given the company were prepared to pay £750 to acquire any converted lead the "charge" (fine) for contacting customers in this way is disproportionately low. If the fine had been £750 per person contacted - converted *or not* - that might have sent a very different message.
We also know that if they were prepared to pay £750 for acquisition there was a lot more than that amount in it for EB in the long run. You wouldn't even need a big conversion rate before the £140k "cost" goes from red to black. The summary being - this fine is not much of a disincentive for people to try doing the same in future.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
