ICO batters financial call centre

The clampdown against spam texts is gathering pace after the Information Commissioner’s Office issued an enforcement notice against a financial services call centre after a sustained campaign asking people if they want a review of their pension.
The ICO launched an investigation into Help Direct UK after 659 complaints to its office and the ‘7726’ spam text reporting service.
The probe discovered that 187,960 texts were sent by the company over nine months covering subjects like PPI, payday loans, pension reviews and debt management.
The vast majority of complaints were made about an unsolicited marketing text from the Swansea-based company, which read: “As you have over 10k in your pension, your pension has lost £3219.43 over the last few years, to get back & find out your payout reply REVIEW.”
ICO enforcement group manager Andy Curry said: “The way in which this company has been operating is completely unacceptable. Not only were members of the public receiving text messages they hadn’t signed up for, but the content was completely misleading.
“The complicated investigation revealed a web of lies told by the company as to how they obtained personal information and whether they were sending text messages at all.
“This enforcement notice should send out a strong message to all companies who use unsolicited marketing text messages to stop and think about what they are doing. Once the law changes on 6 April it will be much easier for our office to take action against companies sending spam texts and making nuisance calls.”
Only last week, the ICO raided a call centre in Hove, Sussex, thought to be to making up to 6 million recorded telephone calls a day about debt management or payment protection insurance.