ICO orders Welsh company to stop making nuisance calls
Article added: 08/09/2014
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has served Camarthen-based direct marketing company Winchester and Deakin Ltd
(also trading as Rapid Legal and Scarlet Reclaim) with an enforcement notice ordering them to stop making nuisance calls.
The move comes after an investigation discovered they had made unsolicited marketing calls to people who had registered with the
Telephone Preference Service (TPS) or who had asked not to be contacted and for whom Winchester and Deakin Ltd had not properly
screened their data against the TPS or an internal Do Not Call (DNC) list prior to making those calls.
The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR), which governs telemarketing, prohibits making unsolicited telephone
calls to people who have registered their number on the TPS or explicitly asked not to be contacted again. The ICO received only
144 complaints about Winchester and Deakin Ltd since January 2013.
That’s about 7 complaints a month…doesn’t seem so much now does it? Could you be next?
The enforcement notice against Winchester and Deakin Ltd orders them not to call people who have previously told them not to ring
or who have registered their number with the TPS so proper screening is in order.
Anne Jones, assistant commissioner for Wales, said:
“If people have asked you not to call them, then don’t call them. If people are registered with the TPS so they don’t receive
unsolicited marketing calls, don’t call them. It’s not complicated. Nuisance calls are annoying, bad business practice and, above
all, against the law.”
“Winchester and Deakin Ltd must follow the rules like everybody else. If they don’t it will be treated as a criminal offence.”