UK fines four firms for predatory marketing

Updated on: 03 October 2022

Jurgita Lapienytė
Chief Editor

Companies were deliberately or negligently flouting electronic marketing laws to make a profit.

The UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has fined four companies a total of £370,000 (over $414,000) for making over 820,000 predatory marketing calls to people registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS.)

Legitimate marketing companies use the TPS registry to identify users who have said they don't want to receive marketing calls.

Despite registering their phone numbers with the TPS, people are bombarded with unwanted calls.

"It is hard enough looking after someone with Alzheimer's Disease without having one's time wasted by spurious sales messages, particularly after having deliberately registered with TPS," one complaint reads.

The ICO fined Eco Spray Insulations Limited (178,190 unwanted calls,) Euroseal Windows Limited (169,830,) Green Logic UK Ltd (11,825,) and Posh Windows UK Limited ( 461,062) for invading people's privacy against their will for financial gain.

"These companies all aggressively pestered people, including some vulnerable individuals, forcibly trying to make them buy products that they didn't need or want. All of the calls were driven solely by the companies wish to make financial gain," Andy Curry, Head of Investigations, said.

The ICO has issued over £2.8 million ($3.14 million) in penalties against companies responsible for nuisance calls, texts, and emails in 2021 and 2022 alone.