Boiler firm fined after 850k calls to ‘blocked’ numbers

A BOILER replacement company that bombarded people with nuisance calls has been fined £160,000.

Making it Easy broke rules on telephone messages after spamming people with more than 850,000 calls between May 2018 to December 2018 in a bid to sell services.

The calls were made to those registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS), which is supposed to ensure their numbers are not targeted by unsolicited marketers.

It is against the law to make marketing calls to numbers that have been registered with the TPS for more than 28 days unless people have given consent.

Making It Easy, based in Clydebank, made 1,067,293 marketing calls overall between the two dates in 2018.

Of those, 853,769 were spam calls made to numbers registered with the TPS.

In total, there were 200 official complaints registered about unsolicited direct marketing calls being made by the company.

Those targeted by the company have been left angered by the calls. One householder said: ‘I cannot find any company details for this number. They claim to be the National Heating Advisory Service.’

Another complainant said: ‘They call themselves the Heating Advice Centre and all speak with Scottish accents despite the [number] being a Swansea STD code.’

The company told the Information Commissioner’s Office that it had bought the numbers from third parties but had failed to check if they were registered with the TPS. It could not provide any evidence that consent had been given.

Stephen Eckersley, ICO’s director of investigations, said: ‘Making It Easy Ltd made a substantial number of marketing calls to people who had made clear that they did not want to receive them.

‘This is unacceptable. It is against the law and we will continue to hold firms to account and issue fines if necessary.’

In 2016, a study found that Scottish cities had the highest rates of nuisance callers across the UK. Glasgow ranked top out of 18 cities, with Edinburgh second and Aberdeen fourth. In a similar incident that year, Glasgow-based boiler replacement company FEP Heatcare was fined £180,000 for making more than two million unwanted marketing calls. The firmplayed householders a recorded message promoting its products and services without their consent.

Citizens Advice Scotland chief executive, Derek Mitchell, said: ‘Companies shouldn’t be calling you if you haven’t consented for your number to be shared with them.

‘If companies call you without your permission, you can report them to the Information Commissioner’s Office.’

Making It Easy Ltd was last night unavailable for comment.