Boss of 'abusive' nuisance call firm banned for 4 years

The boss of a home improvement company which made more than 900,000 cold-calls – many of them “abusive” and aggressive” – has been banned as a director for four years.

Callum Jones of St Leonards-on-Sea was the sole director of Sussex-based Colourcoat, which specialised in roof cleaning, wall coating and insulation services.

The company made 969,273 unsolicited marketing calls which connected between August 2019 and April 2020, with almost half (452,811) to people who had opted out of receiving such calls by signing up to the Telephone Preference Service.

Contact centre staff working for Colourcoat did not identify themselves on the calls or provided false company names including Homes Advice Bureau, EcoSolve UK and, on one occasion, Citizens’ Advice Bureau.

Some of the complainants described the calls received as “rude”, “aggressive” and “abusive”, and made one complainant feel “threatened”. People reported that the calls made them feel “annoyed” or “anxious”. However, the company’s website boasted: “Our reputation speaks for itself.”

The ICO issued an enforcement notice to Colourcoat in June 2021 for breaching regulations 21 and 24 of the Privacy & Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 (PECR) relating to the use of calls for direct marketing purposes.

Colourcoat was fined £130,000 by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) but went into liquidation in June 2023, having only paid just over £74,000 of its £130,000 penalty.

The Secretary of State for Business and Trade accepted a disqualification undertaking from Jones, and his ban started on Monday 3 February.

The undertaking prevents him from being involved in the promotion, formation or management of a company, without the permission of the court.

Insolvency Service chief investigator Victoria Edgar said: “Callum Jones allowed his company to plague households over an eight-month period, making hundreds of thousands of nuisance cold-calls.

“Businesses employing such unscrupulous tactics can expect enforcement action to be taken against them and Jones’s director ban now means he cannot run or manage any company for the next four years.”

ICO director of enforcement and investigations Andy Curry added: “We welcome the decision to disqualify Callum Jones as the director of Colourcoat.

“Nobody should be made to feel uncomfortable after simply answering the phone, and our investigation found that this company had no regard for the law, or the people they were illegally calling.

“Our Financial Recovery Unit works closely with the Insolvency Service to bring companies and directors to account. By disrupting the non-compliant activities of directors such as Callum Jones, we can help ensure they can’t easily resurface under a different name and continue to cause further harm to people.”