back to article ICO clamps down on nuisance calls, slaps £90k fine on Glasgow firm

A Glasgow company that deliberately nagged households with nuisance calls has been fined £90,000 by Britain's data protection watchdog. DM Design had annoyed the hell out of thousands of people by making nuisance marketing calls to their home telephone numbers. The Information Commissioner's Office said that the regulator and …

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  1. Dogsauce
    Mushroom

    Feeble

    Is there any point warning these companies about forthcoming fines? Doesn't that just give the scumbag directors ample time to shift assets to a safe place?

    Until we have a law that gives the ICO power to commandeer a JCB and dig up the offender's incoming lines within 24hrs of the first validated complaint and impound their stupid big white Audis then this sort of activity will carry on. Prosecution and a fine dodged through bankrupcy are just a risk of doing business, and the slow wheels of justice will provide plenty of time for boot-filling and squirreling away.

    1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

      Re: Feeble

      Too true.

      "Today’s action sends out a clear message to the marketing industry that this menace will not be tolerated,"

      Yeaj, like fsck it does. £90k is a derisory fine for these scumbags, it's just a slap on the wrist.

      Hit them with a £10k per call fine, and ban the directors from being a director of any company again until the total is paid.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Fines are pointless

        Not fines (at least, not fines alone). Fines alone are rarely appropriate in "white collar" crime. There's always some beancounter somewhere willing to move money around for the bad guys, e.g. so they go bankrupt and ultimately don't have to pay the fine. Even disqualification as a company director doesn't help much.

        Time inside might be a better deterrent for this kind of scum. And without the option of a (Vicky Pryce style) instant transfer to open prison.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Do they actually pay up?

    And who gets the money?

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Re: Do they actually pay up?

      Full details should be available from OfCom or the ICO. But, in general, it's a fine so the money should go into a pot which might be used to provide compensation for victims. For the fairly obvious reason of avoiding people trying it on you don't get money for reporting alleged abuse. If the regulator determines that abuse has taken place then it might be possible to sue for damages, though one of the reasons for the fine-based approach is to avoid suits attempting to obtain excessive damages. I hate nuisance calls and always report them*, fortunately we don't get many in Germany, but they do not generally impose a significant cost. One of the things they do here if someone is adjudged to have committed abuse is to cut their, and by extension, their provider's access to the telephone system. I suspect this, as much as the higher fines introduced last year, is a good deterrent.

      * to do this don't slam the phone down, however tempting, but note the details of the call. If there are a lot of calls then you can get the phone company to add a trace, this costs money which may or may not be claimed back, but will allow them to establish the originating network.

  3. Gordon Pryra

    What is the turn over of this company?

    What is the affect of 90k? If they have received thousands of complaints, then there will be hundreds of thousands who did not complain. so its a fair bet that this company is laughing right now as the 90k can come from small change

  4. Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

    incomplete penalty

    Should have added their genitalia were to be ripped off and Tabasco sauce rubbed onto the bleeding stump.

  5. Dr Paul Taylor
    Flame

    The fault is that caller ID is useless

    (1) The "message that this sends" to such companies is that they should not provide caller ID and so get caught. The telephone system is technologically so primitive that it is (the telcos claim) impossible to trace calls. Even when caller ID is provided it can easily be spoofed, because the spec is primitive.

    (2) Many organisations (eg the NHS) withhold caller ID as a matter of policy "for security". That is, they consider that it is more secure to get someone involved in a possibly sensitive conversation if they can't distinguish the caller from a complete stranger. So blocking anonymous calls also blocks the important ones.

    (3) As I remarked a few weeks go with lots of upvotes, many organisations (eg banks) go to great lengths to mimick the behaviour of criminals, eg by asking for security information in calls that they have initiated.

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: The fault is that caller ID is useless

      My friend has BT block all calls from 'number withheld' to his landline. The NHS and other gov services are obliged to call him on an identifiable number.

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. PC Paul
      FAIL

      Re: The fault is that caller ID is useless

      To all those companies who withhold caller ID - why not set it instead to a central number which has at the very least a recorded message stating who the call was from? Ideally it would be a switchboard staffed by clueful people, but you can't have everything.

      Not to mention people like 3 who text you a voicemail notification where the caller ID isn't the right number to call to collect the said voicemail, but is in fact unobtainable? - what idiot thought of that one!

      1. vagabondo
        Unhappy

        Re: The fault is that caller ID is useless

        It is perfectly possible to have a presentation number other than the originating line. The rules just say that the originating and presentation numbers must belong to the same organisation. So there is no technical reason for Hospitals, Tax Offices, Police Stations, etc. not presenting the number for their man reception desk or switchboard.

        It is sheer bloodymindedness for organisations that warn the public about scam calls to then withhold their own numbers.

  6. Gatt
    Facepalm

    **snigger**

    PECR? seriously? Did someone not check this before they came up with the title of the law? Or was it deliberate ?

    1. Why Not?
      Coat

      Re: **snigger**

      Probably deliberate they are trying to convince us they have grown a pair to go with their PECR.

      Its their swansong they are finally penalising UK firms but mostly I get calls from 'Reginald' in India nowadays.

  7. Tanuki
    Thumb Down

    As well as the ICO issuing "exemplary fines" against these companies I'd like to see the people behind the incessant "reclaim your PPI" and "payday loan" robodiallers/SMS-spams have the rest of their sad and pitiful lives blighted by a combination of enduring pain and the inconvenience of double-incontinence.

    1. Conrad Longmore

      The problem with the PPI pests (etc) is that they won't reveal who they are, so it is very difficult to take action against them. They are only lead generators, they simply pass the lead on to another party.

      £90k is a bit tame for a fine. The £440k that Tetrus got hit with is more like it.

      1. JimmyPage Silver badge

        Identifying callers

        it is quite easy to find out whos calling - pretend you want their "service" and get something in writing from them.

        Although I would agree ... who's got the time ?

        1. Conrad Longmore
          Boffin

          Re: Identifying callers

          But the people who offer the service (e.g. the PPI Claims Handlers) are not always the people who ring you up (but they are sometimes). A PPI lead can be worth (I believe) about £50 to £200 per lead, so unsurprisingly they is a whole industry of bottom-feeders that just generate the leads and resell them on.

          There's an interesting legal point here, and I don't know if it has been tested. If you are illegally cold-called by a lead generation company who then sell the lead onto another party (a claims management company, say), who is liable for the wrongdoing? The claims management firm? The lead generator? Both? Is there joint and several liability? The case of Roberts vs Media Logistics (el Reg has an article here - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01/06/spam_court_media_logistics/) does set some sort of precedent for individual action through the small claims court, but I don't know if it has been tested in this scenario.

    2. Evan Essence
      Thumb Down

      Enduring pain, the inconvenience of double-incontinence and a diet of Spam. A boring, monotonous diet of nothing but Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam. And Spam.

    3. Da Weezil
      Mushroom

      PPI complaints to the MOJ please!

      I recently discovered that PPI companies have to be licenced by the Ministry of Justice. One call to A helpful guy in London was enough to register a complaint. The MOJ have a unit dealing with this - but it seems to be suffering from a lack of publicity - I called out of sheer bloody minded anger.

      it would be nice to see some companies lose their licence - and be unable to operate in that field.

      1. The BigYin

        Re: PPI complaints to the MOJ please!

        Why did you not provide any details on who to call?

  8. Richard Boyce
    FAIL

    Evidently the crime still pays

    These announcements and fines probably have more to do with self-justifying PR than actual deterrence.

    Changes in technology make these nuisance calls easier and cheaper to make; it should also be easier and cheaper for the victims to register a complaint and help themselves

    For example, you should be able to press a couple of buttons on your phone to signal to the telephone system that the current call is a nuisance, and have the rest happen automatically.

    The regulators should stop telecoms companies charging extra for transmitting Caller ID to a customer. The companies are professionally being part of the problem instead of part of the solution. With automatic caller ID and the suppression of anonymous calls, we can install equipment that can download and upload lists of problem numbers.

    The regulators should try to manage themselves out of a job as much as possible by enabling the victims to better defend themselves. Is that too much to hope for?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    They aren't a fly-by-night company. They've existed since 1984

    I have personal experience with this company - they operate from an industrial estate a couple of minutes walk from where I grew up. My parents were one of their firs customers (at the time, they specialised in fitted kitchens).

    It just smacks of a director/company who don't know or care about the telephone preference service or similar.

    If you want more info on the company, look at this

    http://companycheck.co.uk/company/SC089938/D-M-DESIGN-BEDROOMS-LIMITED

    C

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: They aren't a fly-by-night company. They've existed since 1984

      Interesting.

      It looks like a husband and wife team. Their names are:

      Donald MacLeod and Elizabeth Ann MacLeod.

      Donald is also a director of BALMORAL KITCHENS & BATHROOMS LIMITED and KENILWORTH PROPERTY COMPANY LIMITED.

      Ann is also a director of NIKKI TAYLOR LTD and BALMORAL KITCHENS & BATHROOMS LIMITED.

      NOTE: The above is all publicly available information.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: They aren't a fly-by-night company. They've existed since 1984

        Got a home phone number ?

        Let's see if they are interested in a new kitchen.

        1. Dave 126 Silver badge

          Re: They aren't a fly-by-night company. They've existed since 1984

          Try Companies House.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: They aren't a fly-by-night company. They've existed since 1984

        Hey read this on Donald Macleod, he was found guilty of being a groper sex pest by an employment tribunal:

        http://www.scotsman.com/news/scottish-news/top-stories/director-pays-out-for-kissing-employee-1-614237

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    PPI Helpline

    Now if somebody could track down the building these calls originate from, burn it to ground and then salt the earth where it stood it would make me immensely happy.

  11. Pen-y-gors

    More practical

    £100 fine per call, to be split between 50:50 between ICO and victim. Double if they're registered with TPS. That would really encourage people to report the calls, as I suspect there are 100 or 1000 unreported calls for every one that is reported

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Not nearly enough

    They should be slow roasted over an open fire.

    Hands up who has had a stupid sales call when:

    1) It's the pop shot with your girlfriend

    2) Right in the middle of a good dump

    3) You have just got in the shower

    1. David Neil
      Gimp

      Re: Not nearly enough

      Bonus points for all 3 at the same time?

      1. PhilBuk
        Joke

        Re: Not nearly enough

        @David Neil

        Reminds me of a German p0rn film I saw once (Yuk!).

        Phil.

    2. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

      Re: Not nearly enough

      You really interrupted those activities to answer the phone and find out? Me, I'd have let it ring.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Go

        Re: Not nearly enough

        Nope for 1 & 2, but it does put you off your stride.

        Yes for 3 when I was expecting a call.

      2. Richard Cranium

        Re: Not nearly enough

        With an elderly relative who may call for urgent assistance at any time, yes, I'd interrupt (almost ?) anything.

        I gave up reporting TPS violations a few years ago after they responded to my FOI enquiry asking what the oucome of complaints was. The answer (shortened from 3 pages) was: If they got enough complaints about an organisation they would ask them to stop but they had never imposed any penalty. So whether the £90k gets paid or not at least the ICO has got of it' fat arse eventually and maybe some other crooks will get the message - and move their call centres to India. If I pick up the phone and hear an Indian voice, I just put the phone down - I've probably done it to my Bank...

    3. daveeff
      Flame

      Re: Not nearly enough

      > Hands up who has had a stupid sales call when:

      4) had a loved one about to die and any phone call can be "the one"

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Not nearly enough

        Been there done (4) in the last couple of months. Friend in hospice with no CLI presented, so "ignore anonymous calls" has to be disabled temporarily. Might even have posted about it (anonymously) somewhere.

  13. Christoph
    Flame

    Pathetic

    £90,000 for phoning up strangers and threatening them? The buggers should be in jail for that one.

  14. Phil Endecott

    10 years until the first fine

    These regulations have existed for 10 years, and this is the first ever fine.

    How long do I have to wait before they start fining people who send me spam emails?

  15. BryanM
    Mushroom

    The ICO and OFCOM need to stop being spineless and shut these companies down. When they're done with that they need to move on to companies leaving recorded messages - which aren't presently covered by the same regulations.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        re: "Revoke the ltd company's charter and confiscate its assets"

        Utterly pointless.

        E.g. Ask anyone who's worked in or near the (UK?) building trade. Standard operating practice for years was build something, go bust (ideally leaving as many suppliers as possible unpaid), resurrect another company in the same business with the same directors and the same employees. Or has something been done to stop that happening? (Yes I'm aware of disqualification of directors, shadow director rules, etc. Useless.)

        It's been like that for years, and not just in the building trade. Gilbert and Sullivan even wrote an opera about it (honest); look up Utopia Limited, first performed 1893 (nothing to do with the user on here calling himself Todd Rundgren, sorry).

        A serious chance of being caught, followed by a serious chance of time inside. Nothing less will have any effect.

  16. Alan Brown Silver badge

    Chocolate teapot

    Meantime the so-called "backwards" americans have $500 per call right of private action (triple damages for willful violations, which is a given if you're on a do-not-call list), criminal proceedings and charges of a couple of million dolars for breaching do not call lists and the regulator (FCC) gets to charge $15,000 PER CALL on top of that, with recorded robocalls being banned 20 years ago.

    Not to mention that it's a criminal offence to fake or wthhold callerID on a marketing call and both the spamming company PLUS the company who hired them are equally liable (IE, follow the money).

    The FCC has gone after (and collected from) UK companie who've breached the TCPA.

    Note that the company in the story concerned aren't being fined for breaching the TPS list - that's never occurred and it is unlikely to whilst the current govt is in power.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Most nuisance calls nowadays come from abroad anyway

    Hardly a day goes by in the Welsh household without a phone call from "the subcontinent".

    Me: "Hello" (studiedly not giving anything away)

    Caller (in overwhelmingly strong Indian accent): "Hello, may I speak to Tom Welsh?"

    Me: "I am he"

    Caller: "My name is Richard and I am calling to tell you about something very important. It has come to the government's notice.../I am from the Microsoft Support Centre and I have to tell you that your computer has a virus.../etc. etc.ad nauseam.

    Following some useful advice gleaned on this very forum, I now tend to say I must consult someone else and then leave the phone off the hook. But it's frustrating that, in the 21st century, BT tell us they can't trace/block/deal with out-of-country nuisance calls. I can foresee a future (for many people I guess it's already here) when we don't have landlines and pick up our mobiles on a "white list" basis.

    1. Da Weezil
      Flame

      Re: Most nuisance calls nowadays come from abroad anyway

      I take the view that it is more a case of BT not wanting to do anything.

      A BT droid once told me that it would be illegal for BT to block calls from overseas - even the ones that spoof caller ID.

      My view is that if I am not expecting calls from overseas I should be able to block out of UK calls to the line I pay rental for - further the b/s about not being able to legally block any calls - I would suggest that where a caller is sending false data identifying an overseas line as being a UK one that has to be a breach of BTs T&C somewhere.

      Its time some real protection was given to citizens - the business world has had 10 years to get its head around the law. Now we need to see some big fines, penalties for UK companies that deliberately use overseas call centres to circumvent UK law including a law to make them liable for the acts of companies who are in effect acting as their agents - and establish a quadruple penalty in those cases as it would be in effect an aggravated offence.

      Time to play some real hard ball with this pond dwelling scum.

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

      2. Alan Brown Silver badge

        Re: Most nuisance calls nowadays come from abroad anyway

        "A BT droid once told me that it would be illegal for BT to block calls from overseas - even the ones that spoof caller ID."

        Bollocks.

        The real reason they don't block international spam calls is that they'd lose substantial amounts ot termination revenue (The receiving telco gets about 1/3 of the call cost most of the time, sometimes more)

  18. Amorous Cowherder
    Facepalm

    90k? Ha ha! It's like "taking away" the license from someone caught driving without a license, they never cared in the first place so they're bloody unlikely to care now!

  19. Evan Essence
    Meh

    Wow

    The terrier has yapped.

  20. peter 45
    WTF?

    You what?

    2000 complaints logged against this company. Er....It took TWO THOUSAND complaints for the ICO to investigate?

    Does that mean that they can't be bothered with 'only' hundreds of complaints

    1. Alan Brown Silver badge

      Re: You what?

      "Does that mean that they can't be bothered with 'only' hundreds of complaints"

      Yes

  21. wowfood
    Trollface

    I hope one of those companies is Microsoft

    I'm getting tired of their technicians in india calling me to inform me that there's a virus on my PC.

    1. Da Weezil

      Re: I hope one of those companies is Microsoft

      We have a play along script in this household... including the information that "we are in Scotland on a very slow connection so downloading that program is taking some time" . The record is almost 50 minutes before the penny dropped and call droid realised he was being gamed..... oh boy do they get angry!!!!

  22. Seanmon
    Devil

    Simple solution.

    Keep a rape alarm handily near your phone. Effective and satisfying.

  23. scruffygit
    Thumb Up

    Happy to see this happen. These people were one of my principal reasons for getting a home phone system with a built-in blacklist feature. I just wish the fine was higher.

  24. James 100

    Anonymous nuisance calls

    One thing I'd like to see changed is a bar on non-personal use of 'number withheld'. EU rules give individuals the right to make anonymous calls free of charge - but does and should this apply to businesses too? I don't think so. That, and make anonymous call rejection a no-cost option to be offered to all customers at installation time, along with being ex-directory etc.

    The £90k fine is a welcome first step, but nothing like enough: disconnection from the phone network - no more phonespam - would be better. The US approach of charging hundreds/thousands of dollars per illegal call documented would be good too.

    Maybe grab their outgoing call records (from the telco; should go back at least a few months for billing purposes anyway), check against TPS; for every hit, require them to provide proof of the 'pre-existing business relationship' or specific consent required for that call to be legal or pay £1000 for the illegal call.

    Anything less, they'll just shrug it off as a cost of doing business - hell, they probably pay more than £90k for their electricity each year!

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