Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Massive fine for boiler cold calls
A hateful company that made almost 11 million illegal cold calls has been fined £260,000.
Whether the fine will actually be paid remains to be seen, because Coventry-based Easyleads Limited has applied to Companies House to be struck off.
It broke the law by sending automatic calls to people at home without permission, and failing to include its name and contact details on the messages about supposed grants for boilers.
More than 550 complaints were made to the Information Commissioner’s Office, which said that Easyleads deliberately misled people by referring to a “government scheme” and the offer of a “free boiler”.
One of its numbers provoked the most complaints about automatic calls for four months in a row.
The calls were often at night and were made to numbers registered with the Telephone Preference Service.
Victims said there was no way to opt out of the messages, one stating: “I have told them twice to remove me from the list but they still ring me.”
The director of Easyleads is 47-year-old Shaun Harker of Coventry, who was previously a director of Lead Supplier UK, along with 34-year-old Lorraine Harker.
This was investigated by the ICO and issued with a warning over its marketing calls. Seven months later Easyleads was incorporated and, says the ICO, “the director embarked on a similar marketing campaign”.
“We hear first-hand from people how utterly disruptive, annoying and sometimes distressing automated calls can be,” said Andy Curry, ICO Enforcement Group Manager.
“Firms cannot expect to get away with intruding into people’s lives like this.”
He added that a new law to allow it to fine directors personally “can’t come soon enough”.