Cold call chiefs face personal fines for breaking the law from today

PEOPLE should start receiving fewer cold calls as the Government’s promised new rules come into force.

Changes in the law today mean the chiefs of nuisance call companies will personally be liable if their business breaks the law – and could be landed with fines of up to £500,000.

Previously, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) could only fine the company, meaning that its boss escaped paying by declaring bankruptcy, only to start up again under a new company name.

Margot James, the digital minister, said the new law would help rid society of the plague of nuisance calls.

But Which?, the consumer campaign organisation, pointed out that the law change had been a long time coming. Having been proposed more than two years ago, it urged the data protection regulator to use its new powers swiftly and crack down on cold call company chiefs.

Billions of unsolicited calls have been made in the past year, according to Which?, with 10,000 reported to its consumer helpline in the past six months alone.

Recent research by the organisation, from a survey of more than 2,000 UK households, shows 71 per cent of people received at least one nuisance call a month. More than half (58 per cent) of these made the people who received them feel annoyed or anxious.

The ICO has fined cold call companies more than £5.7million for breaching nuisance call rules since 2015, but of the 27 fines issued, only nine had been paid in full, government figures revealed.

Statistics also showed that elderly people appeared more vulnerable to scams initiated by nuisance calls than any other age group. Nearly half of landline calls made to elderly and vulnerable people were from cold callers, analysis by Truecall revealed.

Ms James said: “There is now no hiding place for the small minority of rogue directors who have previously tried to escape justice. We are determined to stamp this menace out and this new law is the latest in a series of measures to rid society of the plague of nuisance calls.”

Andy Curry, head of the ICO’S nuisance call team, said: “We welcome this amendment to the law which will increase the tools we have to protect the public. It will mean we can recover the fine more easily and also make it much harder for unscrupulous operators to set up in business again.”

Alex Neill, of Which?, said: “The introduction of fines for bosses of these companies is a significant step and the regulator must now act swiftly to properly police and fine those who flout the law – demonstrating that there is no place in our society for these practices.”