Firms behind nuisance calls and millions of emails fined

FOUR companies behind 44 million spam emails, 15 million nuisance calls and one million spam texts have been fined a total of £600,000.

Barrington Claims Limited, previously based in Llanelli but now registered in Port Talbot, has been fined £250,000 for making more than 15 million automated calls, and London-based Newday Limited must pay £230,000 for sending more than 44 million spam emails.

Goody Market UK Limited, in Liverpool, has been hit for £40,000 after sending 111,367 spam texts and Macclesfield-based TFLI Limited has been fined £80,000 for sending 1.19 million nuisance texts.

The Information Commissioner’s Office said hundreds of complaints prompted investigations that found all four firms had broken the law by not having people’s agreement to be contacted.

Complaints were made about the frequency and persuasive nature of the calls and included one from a householder just home from major surgery who reported that the calls were “annoying and distressing as I have to have the phone free for district nurses and they are waking me up when I need to be sleeping”.

Andy Curry, ICO enforcement group manager, said: “Firms cannot get away with failing to follow the rules designed to protect people from the irritation and, on occasions, distress nuisance calls, emails and texts cause.”