Two telemarketing companies that made more than 1.4 million calls, over a period of about 13 months, to numbers listed with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) have been fined a total of £340,000 by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
The calls resulted in 76 complaints to the ICO and the TPS. The complaints alleged that callers were aggressive and used high-pressure sales tactics, and that requests to stop calling were ignored. Making an unsolicited call for direct marketing purposes to a number on the TPS, or a number the caller has previously been instructed not to call, is prohibited by Regulation 21(1) of the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003.
An ICO investigation found evidence that elderly and vulnerable people had been specifically targeted. Both companies claimed that they had outsourced TPS screening to other organisations; however, the ICO found that there were no mechanisms in place to prevent calls being made to numbers on the TPS.
Both companies were issued with enforcement notices in addition to the fines.