Brit bank fined £75k over 1.5 million text and email spamhammer A Bradford-based bank has been fined by the UK's data privacy watchdog for sending illegal marketing texts and emails. Vanquis Bank Limited spammed 870,849 text messages and 620,000 emails to promote its credit cards without the recipients' consent, which is against the law. The bank obtained the marketing lists used to send …
"just over 8.5 pence per text message "
I wonder what the return rate is on these sorts of spams? I remember many years ago doing a half day"marketing awareness" course [*] and being told that cold mail shots to a targeted group was doing well if there was a 2% response, It may not cost much to do the spamming, but it may cost to get the lists and if the rate of return is low, the "cost" per live lead might be less trivial once the fine is added to the overall cost.
* Not my job, but the boss thought all staff should at least have a basic understanding of what all the other departments did. It was actually quite useful.
@DJO
Not enough - that's only 56p per message.
If the ICO/HM Gov really want to stamp this out then fines should be in the order of £2 per message sent (text or email makes no difference) and the liability for these fines is transferable to company directors in the event of the company liquidating/going bust. Hound the bastards all the way into personal bankruptcy if necessary.
Seriously. Fines like this show just how toothless the ICO can be. Obvs I don't know the numbers, but if they can generate even £85k revenue as a result of this campaign then they've made a profit and that will prove to their money men/managers that ignoring the rules can make good business sense.
Fine them £1 per message/call, not £0.05 - then we'll see companies sit up and start taking compliance seriously.
EDIT: I had a maths fail...
'The campaign resulted in a number of complaints, an investigation and ultimately a hefty £75,000 fine from the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).'
I wouldn't call £75k a hefty fine. It's not enough, you start slapping people with fines in millions and they might just start to take notice.
£75k (or even a bit more) after delayed prosecution will never deter them, as others have noted.
One answer may be to start action earlier - and then have jail as an option for any further offences.
It would need a change in thinking, as well as the law, but might focus some wayward minds.
We don't want to see text messages become unusable like many personal land lines have. This practice does need to be stamped out by proper concerted action. I agree with "Cynical Observer" that fines like this should be transferable to the directors if the company doesn't pay. The carrier should also share some liability as the gate keeper that has allowed a million plus spam texts onto the the system.
The fine at a minimum should at least be the cost of a first class stamp. If I had my way it would a be a minimum of 4 times the cost of a first class stamp. Second time caught 5 times. Third time 6 times etc ,etc. Oh and management are fined 2 times the cost of a stamp per email,text,call. They pay this personally not the company. Oh and make it so the fines are not tax deductible and the company can not pass the cost onto the customers for 2 quarters.
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