Cold-call firm bosses to face £500,000 fines
Rogue bosses who hound the public with millions of cold calls will face fines of up to £500,000 as ministers close the loophole that enables them to escape sanction. The directors of cold-call companies are currently able to escape fines by declaring themselves bankrupt, before setting up new businesses. Nearly half of the £17.8million in fines issued since 2010 has gone uncollected. Ministers believe the change will significantly reduce nuisance calls.
ROGUE bosses who hound the public with cold calls will face fines of up to £500,000 as ministers close a loophole that enables them to escape sanction.
The directors of cold-call companies can at present avoid fines by declaring themselves bankrupt before going on to set up new businesses.
According to the Information Commissioner, nearly half the £17.8million in fines issued since 2010 are unpaid. To plug the loophole, the Government is drawing up plans to make directors of cold calling companies personally liable. Ministers believe that will also have the effect of significantly reducing the estimated 3.9billion nuisance calls and texts that plague consumers every year.
Margot James, a culture minister, said: “Nuisance calls are a blight on society and we are determined to stamp them out. For too long a minority of company directors have escaped justice by liquidating their firms, opening up again under a different name.
“We want to make sure the Information Commissioner has the powers she needs to hold rogue bosses to account and put an end to these unwanted calls.” In the year 2016-17, the Information Commissioner issued £1.9 million in fines to 23 companies for nuisance marketing.
Steve Wood, the deputy commissioner, said: “We have been calling for a change to the law to deter those who deliberately set out to disrupt people with troublesome calls, texts and emails. These proposals will increase the tools we have to protect the public.”
Louis Kidd was in his 20s when he helped start a cold-call company that was fined £350,000 for making 40 million nuisance phone calls in four months. The automated calls, relating to PPI claims, hit homes across Britain at the rate of 330,000 a day. But the firm, Prodial, was put into liquidation in November 2015 as the ICO closed in.
Tony Abbott, who drove a £200,000 Mclaren sports car and bought a 25room mansion in the Home Counties, also ran a firm fined for cold calling.
Reactiv Media was fined £75,000, but it was eventually put into the hands of receivers, leaving the fine unpaid.
An investigation by the Insolvency Service after Mr Abbott’s business went bust with a £2million debt found that Reactiv Media had obtained almost £34,000 of taxpayer’s money allegedly by submitting falsified invoices to support a grant application.
The Insolvency Service found that the company had spent £55,000 on jewellery and on Mr Abbott’s wedding to his second wife Stephanie at the Savoy hotel in May 2016.
The wedding ceremony at the lavish venue was followed by a party on a Thames boat and an evening meal.
Reactiv Media also owned a £120,000 Bentley, a £65,000 Porsche and a £62,000 Range Rover. Mr Abbott has been banned from being a company director for 12 years.