COLD CALL PEST BOSS IS BANNED
Public plagued 1.6m times a day by hustler who loved flash cars
The former boss of a nuisance cold-call firm has been banned from running companies for eight years.
Duncan Paul, director of Clydebank-based CRDNN Limited, made lives a misery by allowing staff to
nd plague homeowners with more than 1.6million cold calls a day.
The firm made millions of automated sales calls within a fourmonth period by targeting homes and businesses in 2018.
The 51-year-old resigned from the West Dunbartonshire business, which went into liquidation in 2021.
A maximum fine of £500,000 was imposed by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) in 2020 but it went unpaid.
Paul, of Balmore, on the outskirts of Glasgow, has now been disqualified from acting as a company director for eight years.
His co-director, 44-year-old Stephen Foote, of Newton Mearns, near Glasgow, was banned as a director for eight years in January 2023.
Mike Smith, chief investigator at the Insolvency Service, said: “Duncan Paul’s company plagued homes and businesses with nuisance cold calls, disrupting the lives of millions of people.
“The calls were persistent, totally unsolicited and, to add to people’s frustration, they received further calls when they attempted to opt out of receiving them.
“Paul and Foote were the directors of this firm and we have taken robust action to prevent them each from running or managing any company for eight years.” We told previously how Paul had been slammed for flaunting supercars in the midst of the scandal, including an Aston Martin, Range Rover and McLaren.
More than 63million automated calls CRDNN made from June to the start of October 2018 connected, and the ICO received almost 3000 complaints during that period via its online reporting tool.
Many of the calls were about window scrappage, debt management, window, conservatory and boiler sales. Others falsely claimed to be working with Scottish and UK government energy-saving schemes.
In one case, calls made to a Network Rail control centre near Fort William clogged up the line, creating potential safety problems.
A further 411 complaints were received by the Telephone Preference Service. CRDNN provided no evidence that recipients had given their consent to receive the calls.
Trevor Callaghan, ICO’s enforcement and Investigations boss, said: “The directors of CRDNN knowingly operated their business with a complete disregard for not only the law but also public safety.
“They harassed millions of people, causing disruption, annoyance and distress and recklessly affected important services potentially putting the wider public in danger.
“That’s why their conduct called for the maximum fine possible under the law.
“Disrupting the activities of these rogue companies and their directors ensures they can’t easily resurface under a different name and continue to cause further harm to people.”
they had a complete disregard for law and safety trevor callaghan ico investigator