back to article Solar panel spammer hit by UK’s biggest ever nuisance calls fine

The UK's data privacy watchdog has issued its largest ever fine for a nuisance caller, £200,000, after a solar panels provider was found culpable for recklessly breaking marketing call regulations. An Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) investigation discovered that Glasgow-based Home Energy & Lifestyle Management Ltd ( …

  1. adnim
    Happy

    See icon

    See above

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    In cases like these I'd like to know whether the fine is greater or less than the profit made unlawfully. Silly me.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      In cases like these I'd like to know whether the fine is greater or less than the profit made unlawfully. Silly me.

      That's why I favour prison sentences, and not those where they can have a day's leave because their granny is ill. In addition, install a phone for incoming calls only in their cell, make it mandatory for them to pick it up and then sell that number to every double glazing salesman in the country as a viable prospect (map it so it doesn't register as a prison phone), and tune their feeding time so it coincides with peak phone traffic.

      Because they're worth it.

    2. Rol

      Class action lawsuit?

      The recently announced, class action lawsuit, with opt-out, not opt-in, has finally arrived in Blighty, and what better way of expressing our delight, than taking this shambles to court.

      I cannot think of one outcome where a guilty company has ever seriously suffered, when taken to task by one of our gloriously ineffective government agencies.

      Now we get to properly thrash these idiots into oblivion.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      In cases like these I'd like to know whether the fine is greater or less than the profit made unlawfully.

      Latest accounts for HELMS were just lodged with Companies House, and they show that they had sales of £22m, and made profit after tax of £813k in 2014. So in net terms they have still benefited from their illegal behaviour, but a fine of £200k will sting.

      1. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

        hey good info Ledswinger. Is there some website you can get that info?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Is there some website you can get that info?

          Yes, Companies House is the UK registry for all companies in mainland UK, and they hold all the details of shareholders, directors, and statutory accounts of all limited companies.

          https://www.gov.uk/get-information-about-a-company

          Use the beta service that the web page links to, it's actually rather good, despite commentards round here moaning incessantly how poor government IT is. If you use the old and fugly Companies House website, they want a quid or so to download documents, but the beta service works better and sets them all free (Hurrah!). The only notable deficiency of both new and old services is that they don't make it easy to see a corporate family tree.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            thanks for Companies House info, especially beta site

            [Companies House info]

            Thanks, that was a useful reply (and the Beta site really is an improvement, I hope it stays that way), but my reading of the question asked was: where can I find the regulatory info you mentioned wrt the Green Deal (and related stuff). ICBW.

            Fancy another reply?

            1. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

              Re: thanks for Companies House info, especially beta site

              no that was exactly the reply i wanted :)

              tnx ledswinger

  3. mhoulden

    The fine is a good start, but I think the line:

    HELM is part of the Government Green Deal initiative

    should be amended to

    HELM was part of the Government Green Deal initiative

    so they can't pester anyone else to buy their solar panels. It would also encourage other companies to behave themselves.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      HELM was part of the Government Green Deal initiative

      Don't worry, DECC and DCLG are currently cooking up a replacement scheme, and you can be sure that where there's government creation of a "market" there will soon be bottom feeders.

      Which is a pity, because in addition to the unlamented death of Green Deal, the under-consultation cuts to feed in tariffs will be the thing that really put a stake through the heart of HELM's solar PV business.

      I suspect the future is grim for PV installers in general, and for HELM staff, but the management of HELM will be back to milk whatever ghastly scheme DECC conjure up to combat climate change.

  4. A K Stiles
    Devil

    A thought...

    how about a code you can dial on your phone which causes the phone company to log the source of the last incoming call and simply blocks calls from that underlying source number (so it includes withheld and non-geographical numbers, possibly also international numbers?) to the customer in question - perhaps directing the caller to a standard message about why their call can't be completed and action to be taken to resolve the problem? They would also have the potential to report numbers repeatedly logged (over some threshold) to the ICO / OffCom / whoever for them to 'have a conversation' about the appropriate use of automated calling systems / telephone preference / marketing lists.

    The only drawback I can see is the phone companies might see a hit in their profits, but they could always still charge for the blocked calls.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: A thought...

      The telecom companies are always complicit in these harassment cases.

      I have telephone preference and I am exdirectory and yet I still get telephone spam because, BT in my case, get paid to handle these calls.

      1. Anode

        Re: A thought... (a solution?)

        For those who don't mind spending some money on solving the problem, get a trueCall. Regular and known callers don't get intercepted once you set it up but spam calls drop to very near zero. Those few that do stick with it long enough to cause your phone to ring, can then be zapped by a key press without any need to speak to them. The peace is bliss! As is knowing once again that the ringing phone is a genuine caller.

        It has been interesting to hear many of the new callers (not as yet on the Allow list) asking about the device as they too are fed up with spam calls.

    2. ckm5

      Re: A thought...

      Phone numbers are trivial to spoof - there is literally no point in doing this, the auto dialer would just be programmed to send a random source number.

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: A thought...

        @ ckm5

        Someone in the phone system knows where the call comes from otherwise they can't bill for it. It needs to be mandatory to pass the action back. If some business in the chain fails then they catch the penalty.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: A thought...

        'ckm5'

        "Phone numbers are trivial to spoof - there is literally no point in doing this, the auto dialer would just be programmed to send a random source number."

        Not at the underlying SS7 layer, consumer callerid has limits, underlying ss7 data has more data.

        Without the extra data, inter-company billing would be impossible.

        Just because you can't see it does not mean the info is not there.

        all telcoms will know thee incoming route that the call took, if they were forced to cut interlinks that keep being the source of this shit, it would stop overnight.

        BT etc don't want this as they would loose revenue, telecoms companies are filled with dodgy people who would sell their granny for commision!!!. (some even link back to organised crime!!)

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: A thought...

      how about a code you can dial on your phone which causes the phone company to log the source of the last incoming call

      I would prefer a number you could dial which would set a taser on the testicles of the executives running such a company. I reckon they'd never get to over 200 complaints then. Heck, I'd gladly take my number OFF the telephone preference services then :).

    4. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: A thought...

      "how about a code you can dial on your phone which causes the phone company to log the source of the last incoming call and simply blocks calls from that underlying source number (so it includes withheld and non-geographical numbers, possibly also international numbers?) to the customer in question"

      You're not taking it far enough. The callee gets their account credited with a fee for taking the call and that gets transferred back. Accepting calls from another telecoms business without making arrangements to do the transfer charge? Then you get to pay it. It needs some means of checking that a given source is making enough logged calls to a variety of numbers to ensure that someone doesn't get the idea of just logging every call irrespective of who calls.

      Of course this might have the entirely unexpected side-effect of killing the outbound calling industry stone dead. Wouldn't that be a shame?

      1. Graham Marsden
        Facepalm

        Re: A thought...

        Even though I've signed up to Virgin's Anonymous Call Blocking "service" I am still getting junk calls saying "we do not have the caller's number".

        In vain have I explained to their "technical support" department that if they do not have the caller's number it is *not* rocket science to block the call...

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: A thought...

      Strangely I took this Idea to my MP a year ago, and she asked the ICO/ experts about this.

      They basically said BT said they could not do it and pushed it to the side.

      (Strange as I used to work in telecoms, and know they can do it!!)

  5. Turtle

    Practice Makes Perfect!

    "...ethical tele-marketing practices..."

    Ha-ha-ha!

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Fine was not big enough to serve as any sort of deterrent

    £200k was what percentage of the company's income?

    They haressed all those people intentionally for profit, either they are made to pay a real fine to discourage it from ever happening again or the directors do some porridge anything less is a green light for more of the same.

    1. ckm5

      Re: Fine was not big enough to serve as any sort of deterrent

      On top of it, the claim that management didn't know the rules is a lie - anyone with the expertise to setup mass auto-dialers will have at least an inkling of rules.

      The directors should be held liable, that would put a stop to it.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Fine was not big enough to serve as any sort of deterrent

        What happened to 'ignorance of the law is no defence'?

        Directors are clearly negligent and can (and should) therefore be held personally liable.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Fine was not big enough to serve as any sort of deterrent

        The directors should be held liable, that would put a stop to it.

        It's a privately held company, with the two directors being the sole shareholders. In this case the guilty do cop the fine, because it's 25% of last year's profit after tax.

        1. jonathanb Silver badge

          Re: Fine was not big enough to serve as any sort of deterrent

          But they get to keep the other 75% of their ill-gotten gains.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Fine was not big enough to serve as any sort of deterrent

      These people caused more misery in total than most murderers. They should get a similar sentence. A 200k fine is a joke.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Fine was not big enough to serve as any sort of deterrent

      "£200k was what percentage of the company's income?"

      Last recorded annual turnover was £22M, so call it 1%,

      The fine won't change anything, it's so ridiculously small that they can write it off as a cost of doing business.

      Info like company turnover, directors names, etc, is officially recorded at Companies House. Some of it is chargeable there. Some other websites offer the same info, including some of the chargeable info for free. For example you can find info for HELM at

      https://www.duedil.com/company/SC408097/home-energy-and-lifestyle-management-ltd/people

      1. jonathanb Silver badge

        Re: Fine was not big enough to serve as any sort of deterrent

        beta.companieshouse.gov.uk has most of the information for every company available for free, and doesn't require you to supply an email address.

  7. Richard Tobin

    Lock 'em up

    It's the only language they understand.

    1. Martin Summers Silver badge

      Re: Lock 'em up

      Or wire them up to one of their solar panels in a desert somewhere perhaps?

      1. Sven Coenye

        Re: Lock 'em up

        Nah. Just program the auto-dialer to call the exec's numbers only.

      2. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

        Re: Lock 'em up

        Do it at night.

        Stake them out Apache style then attach the leads from the panels to their dangly bits and wait for the sun to come up.

        I'm sure that you could sell tickets to it.

        Tell the world that this is a warning to others. They will get the same but from a much bigger array.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Lock 'em up

        Or wire them up to one of their solar panels in a desert somewhere perhaps?

        You'd need a power supply with some sort of Schmitt trigger and cloudy skies for that to really be, er, "educational". Alternatively, you could use that same wire to string them up by their gonads before connecting the ends to something delicate.

    2. Notas Badoff

      Re: Lock 'em up

      6,000,000 calls at one minute of disruption per each minimum scribbles that's 11+ years of 24/7 ringing in their ears please! Best served where there's an echo and dozens of irritable people around. That's proportionate punishment.

  8. imanidiot Silver badge

    not enough

    The fine should be trippled at least. And if that causes the company to go bankrupt, good. They deserve nothing less.

  9. Doctor_Wibble
    Devil

    Forget the money

    Make them all write "I will not call this number again" a thousand times for every single number they called, multiplied by the number of times they called it.

    In charcoal. On toilet paper.

  10. Da Weezil

    I read somewhere that the company also claimed that the calls were made by a third party they engaged for the purpose and as such they will appeal as they didnt make the actual calls.

    What I want to see is that UK companies that use these services to cold call on their behalf are held totally responsible for the activity undertaken on their behalf. Huge fines and severe sanctions for breaches of the regs for both the contractor and the company employing them.

    Ignorance of the act s of your agents is as bad as ignorance of the legislation covering your activities.

  11. Little Mouse

    Wot, no names?

    C'mon El-Reg - Name some names.

    It was actual people that behaved in this way. Actual, selfish, greedy, unpleasant people. Not just some faceless company.

    And if you could dig up their phone numbers too whilst you're at it, that'd be awesome.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Wot, no names?

      C'mon El-Reg - Name some names.

      It was actual people that behaved in this way. Actual, selfish, greedy, unpleasant people. Not just some faceless company.

      Well, that's actually very easy to look up, it's public data.

      Where it gets really interesting is if you start tracking what the people involved have been doing before, and you may raise an eyebrow there. It's one of the reasons I rather like the new Webcheck interface..

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Wot, no names?

      Life would have been simpler if the director's name and address (which by law are matters of public record) had been in the ICO report but it doesn't seem to be. Regardless...

      You know the company name.

      You may not have known that Companies House has names of company directors, and that Companies House info is also available through various other websites, which sometimes don't charge for info that Companies House will charge for. You know that now. A good search engine is handy.

      Once you have the director's name you can combine it with stuff like 192.com or directors.findthecompany.co.uk or whatever and you may find the director's name and address. It may or may not be their residential address. You may also find details of how many other directorships the person has, and the names of the companies involved.

      All for free, for just a few minutes of your valluable time.

      For this particular case, is the postcode ML3 6 any good (I know the rest following the above method but won't post it)? Handful of other directorships. Sorry no phone number (yet).

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Wot, no names?

        Sadly, like car clamping companies and their ilk, it's unlikely to be a residential address since Companies House made provision for crooks to hide.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Wot, no names?

          since Companies House made provision for crooks to hide.

          IIRC, directors were allowed to use non-residential addresses only after changes made in response to the criminal misbehaviour of animal rights extremists against the homes of company directors. So it was precisely this sort of vigilantism that means you usually find mailing addresses, nothing to do with "allowing crooks to hide".

    3. Steven Roper

      Re: Wot, no names?

      Much as I'm inclined to agree with naming and attacking those responsible - I detest telemarketers as much as anyone does - I find I cannot support this idea.

      I'm strongly opposed to internet lynch-mobs and vigilante justice in any form and for any reason. If I condemn feminists for lynch-mobbing rocket scientists to grovelling apologies for wearing girl-depicting shirts, and ruining the careers of IT techs for making jokes about dongles, then I equally have to condemn people for employing the same methods for attacking telemarketing executives, however attractive that may seem. It is when we have our convictions tested like this that we discover whether we are hypocrites, and I do my damndest not to be one. Because the one human trait I detest above all else is hypocrisy.

      So I have to say, identifying and storming the executives' homes with torches and pitchforks is not the answer. That said, I do feel the justice system has failed in this case, and it is when the justice system falters that vigilanteism flourishes.

      What needs to happen is not a fixed fine, but instead an approach like that Finland takes towards speeding fines - a fine painfully commensurate to the income of the offending party. So instead of being fined a fixed sum against the company, the executives should be fined, severally, at a percentage of their income painful enough that they're going to be living on packet noodles and toast for a year or two at least, in addition to a significant percentage of the company's revenue. The fine should hurt everyone involved, not just be able to be written off as a running expense.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Wot, no names?

        If I condemn feminists for lynch-mobbing rocket scientists to grovelling apologies for wearing girl-depicting shirts, and ruining the careers of IT techs for making jokes about dongles, then I equally have to condemn people for employing the same methods for attacking telemarketing executives, however attractive that may seem.

        Well, that's easy to solve then: don't. Just focus on the directors of telemarketing setups that don't stick to the rules (I'm not actually aware of who does, but let's assume they exist). The problem with financial fines is that it's easy to cook the books and you thus impose extra costs on the legal system to mine for the actual facts (otherwise the costs of the fine are simply rolled onto the victims). Making it criminal means it's first of all a much more painful sentence, and it also has a preventative effect because it creates a record that you can act on.

        Personally, I am done with giving people so much the benefit of the doubt they can do pretty much anything they like and screw over honest people. Most people I know what is right and wrong, and you can't tell me that such people do this by accident - it's not exactly a new problem (or, more accurately, a new scam). This is also why I go after such companies where I can - obfuscate all you like, but if I get interested you better have it done right because I know where to dig.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Wot, no names?

        "If I condemn feminists for lynch-mobbing rocket scientists to grovelling apologies for wearing girl-depicting shirts, and ruining the careers of IT techs for making jokes about dongles, then I equally have to condemn people for employing the same methods for attacking telemarketing executives,"

        Your first two examples are likely naive or dumb or similar and should be treated accordingly, at least for the first "offence" (which may or may not be "offences" in the legal sense, even if life would be a lot better if either side didn't behave like that).

        Your telemarketing executive behaving as in this case is not usually naive or dumb, he typically knows what he's doing is immoral and probably illegal too, he's just confident he can get away with it and confident that, based on history, no meaningful consequences will result.

        I'm not advocating vigilante justice either. But it's clear that the current setup is not working satisfactorily for many of the criminals out there.

        "an approach like that Finland takes towards speeding fines - a fine painfully commensurate to the income of the offending party"

        Does the name Chris Huhne mean anything to you?

        Accountants are wonderful people. They can make the numbers tell whatever story you pay them to tell. They'll make the directors look proverty stricken if that's what's needed.

        If six months inside is appropriate for a student with no previous, as punishment for stealing £3.50 of bottled water from Lidl during the riots, what should be the appropriate punishment for people like the director in this case ?

        http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8695988/London-riots-Lidl-water-thief-jailed-for-six-months.html

  12. Phil Endecott

    That's....

    3p per call.

    Pathetic.

    Compare with, say, a £30 fine for littering. 1000x greater.

  13. JimmyPage Silver badge

    Dump the landline ...

    3 months ago, for various reasons, we had to pull the phone out of the wall. Since then the world hasn't ended. We have already ensured that any communications are email/twitter/ Hospitals and doctors seem to be able to call the mobile.

    Bottom line, is 3 months without a landline, and not a single cold call. Probably not what Virgin Media will want to hear when I next call them up "to quit".

    Presumably the fact that you still have to pay for a mobile call means they are much less prone to spamming ?

    1. FrogsAndChips Silver badge

      Re: Dump the landline ...

      Same thing here since I switched to an 0203x VoIP number 3 months ago. Number is only given to people we trust, no junk call since.

      We probably get lots of spam on the number Virgin has imposed on us, but guess what? There's no phone at the end of the line...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Dump the landline ...

      I'm pleased life works for you without a landline at the moment. Just don't count on it staying that way for as long as you might hope.

      What would you and your similarly self-centred short-sighted "I'm all right jack" folk suggest for the non-trivial number of people where mobile coverage is basically useless? And no these folk are not all out in the middle of nowhere, they may like me and my neighbours in a pleasant city suburb just be in places where "market economies" on the part of the network operators mean that coverage has in the last year or two got significantly worse than it was five years or even fifteen years ago (from excellent indoor cover for many years to marginal outdoor cover if you're prepared to walk a bit). And no one gives a monkeys, apparently, least of all, Ofcon.

      1. JimmyPage Silver badge

        Re: Dump the landline ...

        Sorry I have no advice.

        We managed to buy a house in one of the most topsy-turvey places in Britain.

        Technically, we live in a city. But are 5 minutes walks from a "shire" with beautiful countryside all around.

        We're 2 minutes from a motorway.

        We're a "deprived area" (no stamp duty, thanks to Gordon Brown) yet are cabled up to the max. My standard 60MBps pure-cable connection is better than *any* of our directors (so they tell me). And I am a minutes walk from a highly-ranked UK university (although not so highly ranked they reply to my emails).

        Mobile coverage is 100% for every network - probably due to the proliferation of masts on tower blocks within line of sight.

        And a 10 minute drive from the newest hospital in the UK.

        Yet house prices here are sub-normal. Currently. A couple of country-dwelling friends have commented that they would pay more for a property with decent broadband.

      2. Fred Flintstone Gold badge

        Re: Dump the landline ...

        What would you and your similarly self-centred short-sighted "I'm all right jack" folk suggest for the non-trivial number of people where mobile coverage is basically useless?

        Actually, I know of a solution. You need about 10 people interested, and you'll end up with decent landline connectivity as well as more than decent Internet. There is an outfit I know that has come up with a rather impressive satellite setup which is then distributed and longlined via WiFi. Whereabouts are you?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Dump the landline ...

          "You need about 10 people interested, and you'll end up with decent landline connectivity as well as more than decent Internet. ... satellite... "

          My particular neighbourhood is in a city suburb which already has landlines and ADSL and VDSL and cable (TV and broadband and phone), and an alleged Virgin-backed plan for free citywide wifi.

          The neighbourhood just has carp mobile coverage in comparison with the situation a couple of years ago, but others elsewhere might be interested in the/your scheme (subject to the usual caveats associated with satellite latency).

          1. Fred Flintstone Gold badge

            Re: Dump the landline ...

            Latency was the first question I asked, but apparently it depends on which satellite you use (I guess the height of orbit matters - I'm not an really at home in satcomms, I'm more at home in radio :).

            Let me get in touch with these guys, they're in London and they were building this up. I once was about to use them for a building off Oxford Circus where BT had no more free circuits - one dish would have been all it took, but the involved company decided to go mobile instead on the insistence of an exec (no doubt in need of a new company paid shiny).

            I suspect they were regretting that less than a week into the contract because they choose EE :)

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ignorance of the rules

    The company I work for has occasionally had dealings with Government departments to try to get grant funding etc. It was a lot of work each time.

    If this lot were part of a Government Green Initiative then why the hell weren't they audited to ensure that they DID know the rules and were going to abide by them?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Ignorance of the rules

      If this lot were part of a Government Green Initiative then why the hell weren't they audited to ensure that they DID know the rules and were going to abide by them?

      There is a Green Deal Code of Conduct (that forbids cold calling, and mandates DPA compliance), and there is a Green Deal "Oversight & Registration Body" (GDORB) that claims to undertake audit and compliance work. Despite this HELM are still a registered Green Deal provider, for what this is now worth.

      DECC spent almost £6m of your money on paying Gemserv Ltd to provide the GDORB service, looks like the taxpayer got shafted again. But when that tool Cameron has just promised £6bn of our money to foreigners to "combat climate change", what's the point in worrying about the waste of a mere £6m?

  15. Commswonk
    Unhappy

    Re: Wot, no names?

    An Anonymous Coward wrote: "But it's clear that the current setup is not working satisfactorily for many of the criminals out there."

    Au contraire it's working extremely well for them; it's us poor buggers who are on the receiving end for whom "the current setup is not working satisfactorily".

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