Car loan company Finance Giant, which claims it is focused on improving the lives of consumers through safe, simple, convenient and transparent finance deals, has been battered for sending hundreds of thousands of illegal marketing texts and emails promoting its services.
The London business, which trades as Car Finance Giant out of a Farringdon office, first came to the attention of the Information Commissioner’s Office during the second Covid lockdown in late 2020, when the ICO received 97 complaints from individual subscribers of unsolicited direct marketing SMS messages.
The texts stated: “Marketplace Crashed! Over 320,000 cars prices dropped due to 2nd lockdown. Best time to upgrade – https://carfinancegiant.co.uk/cars Good Luck!”
The messages were reported to the regulator through the 7726 spam reporting system, indicating that the SMS messages in question were sent without the subscribers consent. The SMS messages also did not contain an opt-out.
When pressed by the ICO, Finance Giant admitted it had sent 40,524 text messages to individual customers and 465,241 emails to 72,483 customers in November 2020. However, it claimed the texts were sent only to customers “who applied for finance through our website and accepted our T&C and Privacy policy which covers our marketing communication”.
When asked to provide evidence that individual customers had given their consent, the firm stated that customers were “unable to submit the application until they tick the box that they agreed with the T&Cs and [had] read our privacy policy”.
Even so, Finance Giant was forced to admit that there was no way for customers to opt out of receiving marketing communications.
Fining the firm £60,000, the ICO concluded: “The Commissioner considers that in this case Finance Giant did deliberately contravene regulations 22 and 23 of PECR. Its privacy policy expressly stated that individuals would only receive marketing should they consent to it, and that individuals would be able to choose which channel they would want to receive marketing.
“Finance Giant were, therefore, plainly aware of the requirements for obtaining valid consent for marketing. The application process on its website did not reflect its privacy policy. Applicants were instead required to consent to direct marketing messages as part of its terms and conditions, nor were individuals properly informed of this during the application process.
“Finance Giant’s privacy policy shows that it knew what was required but chose to ignore those requirements when it came to the application process.”
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