REVEALED: The worst phone pest in Britain ...who plagues us with 6m cold calls a day
IT’S the call centre accused of plaguing Britain with an incredible six million calls a day.
Now The Mail on Sunday can reveal the chequered background of the man responsible – involving disputes with famous names and a string of failed businesses.
Russell Church is the main shareholder in a company that is currently under investigation for bombarding its victims, including the elderly and vulnerable, with unsolicited nuisance calls selling debt management and pay- ment protection insurance (PPI) claims services.
Earlier this month the cold-call ‘factory’ based at an anonymous business complex in Hove, East Sussex, was raided by the Information Commissioner’s Office, which is responsible for the enforcement of the Data Protection Act.
The firm is reported to hold a staggering 90 million phone numbers that it repeatedly calls using sophisticated technology.
Mr Church has a decidedly questionable past that includes:
Being banned from running companies because of unpaid taxes and National Insurance payments;
Eighteen of his firms going into liquidation, owing creditors millions of pounds;
Taking thousands of pounds in subscription fees from teenage Boyzone fans for a magazine that folded after one issue;
A legal claim from TV presenter Anne Diamond over an offensive cartoon in a magazine he published.
Mr Church began his career as an entrepreneur in the mid-1980s in Brighton, where he lived until recently with his wife in a £1.6 million property.
The 54-year-old has been the director of 19 companies, mostly relating to the publishing industry. But official records show that 18 of these firms have been dissolved, owing £3.4million to creditors. In 2009 Mr Church was banned by the Department for Business for four years from setting up another business after it was discovered that four of his firms had failed to pay taxes and National Insurance payments totalling £120,000.
Mr Church has also been the subject of a number of legal actions involving high-profile names. The first of these lawsuits was brought by Ms Diamond and her then husband, TV executive Mike Hollingsworth, in 1991 over what they believed to be an offensive cartoon published in a magazine owned by Mr Church.
In 1996, he landed in hot water again when his company Celebrity Publications brought out Boyzone’s official magazine.
The pop band’s management said they planned to sue the firm when the magazine folded after one issue, leaving angry teenage fans who had paid a £30 subscription fee out of pocket.
At the time, the band’s manager, John Reynolds, said: ‘We are disgusted with Celebrity Publications and their disregard for Boyzone fans. The whole matter is in the hands of our lawyers. Celebrity Publications were recommended to us because they also handled the official East 17 magazine.’
Mr Church caused more controversy when he launched a monthly ‘lads’ mag’ in 2004 called Sorted that offered advice on shoplifting and taking ecstasy. But this also proved to be a doomed venture and folded after four editions, owing thousands of pounds and unpaid wages to staff.
Despite his financial troubles, Mr Church is now the majority owner of a call centre that the ICO says has cornered a sizeable proportion of the cold-call market.
David Clancy, from the information regulator, said. ‘It is astounding to think that this one small company has the ability to pester millions of
He’s harvested a staggering 90m numbers to hard-sell services He’s being investigated for bombarding elderly and vulnerable He’s gone bust 18 times – and was banned over unpaid taxes
people with unwanted calls on a huge scale.’
The firm is based at the Gemini Business Centre in Hove and shares its address and directors with several other cold-call companies. For legal reasons, the company being investigated cannot be named.
The ICO launched an investigation into the centre after receiving reports that its staff had been phoning people who had asked not to receive unsolicited sales or marketing calls. The watchdog suspects the firm used automatic dialling technology to make up to six million nuisance calls a day.
These calls resulted in ‘millions upon millions’ of anonymous messages being left on people’s home phones and mobiles with offers about debt management and PPI claims services.
The ICO said the company invited victims to press 9 to speak to a call handler regarding a PPI claim, or 5 to stop the calls.
But investigators for the watchdog said there was evidence that those who pressed 5 continued to be harassed.
Mr Clancy added: ‘I have never seen an operation of this size. Those targeted will have included the elderly or people vulnerable for other reasons. We received a vast number of complaints from hundreds of people who were frightened by these calls.’
The ICO confiscated paperwork and computer equipment during its raid on March 12 and is considering what further action to take.
Last night, Conservative MP Jackie Doyle-Price, who is a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on nuisance calls, called for firms to be ‘named and shamed.’
She said: ‘You will then find out who is behind them and the chances are that anyone who’s prepared to make nuisance calls is probably playing fast and loose with the law elsewhere.
‘We also need to be taking action against those companies using nuisance calls to generate business.’
Mr Church’s lawyer, Matthew Higdon, insisted there had been ‘no formal allegation, charge or complaint’ received by his client or any companies associated with him. He said neither Mr Church nor his companies had ‘received any notification as to any investigation by the ICO or any other regulatory authority’.
The raid comes ahead of the introduction of new powers on April 6 that will make it easier for the ICO to fine rogue cold-call companies up to £500,000. Recent figures show that 30million Britons receive up to a billion nuisance phone calls and text messages every year. The new powers due to come into force follow a sustained campaign by the ICO to make it easier to fine companies found to be making nuisance calls.
The ICO has struggled to punish rogue firms because of the requirement to prove the business had caused ‘substantial damage or distress’. But now the regulator simply has to demonstrate a firm has been a significant nuisance to apply fines of up to £500,000. An ICO spokesman said: ‘This law change is a game-changer. The Mail on Sunday has exposed firms using cold calls in the past. In 2013, our undercover i nvestigation revealed how one company, Lead Performance Limited, had phoned thousands of people to persuade them to release money from their pensions without warning of the risk of large losses.
‘These firms must be named and shamed’