SCOTTISH COLD CALL COWBOYS PESTERED 1.6MILLION

Firm fined £60,000 for nuisance phone calls

A SCOTS firm has been hit with a huge fine after bombarding householders with 1.6million calls. Omega Marketing Services made almost seven calls a second using an automated system in a bid to sell solar panels and green energy equipment.

The Glasgow-based company, run by director Stewart Murdoch, 33, was yesterday given a £60,000 fine – one of the highest ever in Scotland.

Householders targeted by Omega, even after joining the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) to stop cold calls, said they were left frightened by ‘aggressive’ repeat calls.

One who asked not to be contacted was angrily asked: ‘Why do you have a telephone then?’ Another was called ‘a waste of time’.

The fine was imposed by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Ken Macdonald, head of ICO regions, said: ‘Omega had no right to make these calls and in doing so they caused frustration, anger and upset.

‘That’s why we took action. The people they were calling took action too. They took the time and trouble to complain – and it does make a

difference. Ultimately, when people complain, we have a better chance of tracking down the rogue companies and stopping the nuisance.’

The TPS was set up as an official nocall list so householders, including elderly and vulnerable people, could end harassment by cold call companies.

But between October 14, 2015 and March 31 this year, 177 people on the list complained they had been contacted by Omega. The ICO said ‘considerably more’ people were likely to have complained but the company did not identify itself.

Further investigations revealed the firm made 1,616,761 unsolicited cold calls to homes across the UK in almost six months to the end of March.

One householder had to answer the phone after a serious accident, as they were expecting a call from the local hospital. They told the information watchdog: ‘I was expecting an appointment confirmation call and answered the phone – so fed up with these calls, they are getting me down.’

Another said it was ‘frightening’ to keep receiving calls after asking the company to stop. A third said: ‘I feel victimised and like these people are picking on me personally.’

Another complaint stated: ‘When I told one caller I didn’t want such calls, he got quite angry and said, “Why do you have a telephone then?”. If someone knocked on your door with such regularity they’d get arrested for harassment.’

The ICO penalty notice revealed Omega used the same landlines as another rogue company, My IML Ltd.

This Manchester-based firm, which also sold solar panels, was fined £80,000 earlier this year for cold-calling people on the TPS list. But Omega took over the same stack of outgoing telephone numbers used by My IML to call multiple households at once, breaking the law in the same way.

A spokesman for Citizens Advice Scotland said: ‘People who have taken steps to avoid cold calls through the TPS are entitled to expect they will receive no cold calls. If a company is deliberately flouting that principle then they should be held to account.

‘We would urge consumers to report any company that flouts the rules in this way, so that similar steps can be taken.’

Murdoch could not be contacted for comment last night, but his parents said he had never lived at their house, despite having registered it as his company address.

His father Kenneth Murdoch, a gardener for Glasgow City Council, said: ‘I couldn’t tell you the last time we saw Stewart. We see him from time to time, but he’ll tell you nothing about what he is doing.’

Of his son’s business, he added: ‘I’ve genuinely no clue how he was running it.’

Mr Murdoch said that in the past he had been the victim of nuisance calls and now uses number recognition to stop them. ‘We only answer the phone if it’s certain people we know,’ he said. ‘We don’t answer if it is certain numbers.’

Omega was fined for breaching the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, which state that unsolicited direct marketing calls should not be made when a recipient has asked for them to stop or signed up to the TPS.

In April, Glasgow-based Nevis Home Improvements was fined £50,000 for making 2.5million phone calls in three months. In March, Lanarkshire boiler replacement firm FEP Heat-care was fined £180,000 over nuisance calls.

Scots are plagued with more nuisance calls than any other part of the UK, despite being more likely to try to stop unwanted callers. One in three Scots were targeted 11 times or more in a month, according to consumer magazine Which?.

Households receive a billion unwanted calls every year.

PUGH IS AWAY

‘Report any firm that flouts rules’

SALES cold-calls are a blight on modern life, turning our phones into an infuriating annoyance.

In our thousands we have turned to the Telephone Preference Service, designed to help us opt out of such calls, in a bid to stem the tide.

But it proved hopeless in the face of a tsunami of 1.6million calls unleashed by Glasgow firm Omega Marketing Services as it touted solar panels and green energy equipment. There can hardly be a phone in Scotland it left untroubled.

And while court action by the Information Commissioner in this and other similar cases is to be commended – as are the victims who took time and trouble to complain – the £60,000 fine for the firm looks like small beer indeed. One hounded Omega Marketing victim said: ‘If someone knocked on your door with such regularity, they’d get arrested for harassment.’ Consumer rights body Which? says Scots are plagued with more marketing calls than anyone else in the UK. Using automated dialling equipment, firms such as Omega Marketing can unleash as many as seven calls a second. The case of Omega Marketing and a trifling fine for the misery it inflicted is precisely the sort of issue our politicians should be making a priority.

More needs to be done to prevent these maddening calls, and sanctions against transgressors made a proper deterrent.