Payday loan firm spanked over 750,000 illegal texts

mobilePayday loan firm The Money Hive – whose website boasts “we understand how important your privacy is to you” – has been fingered for sending more than 750,000 direct marketing messages without consent.

The Greater Manchester company, set up in 2015 by Christopher Kilgour and Andrew Button, came to the attention of the Information Commissioner’s Office in September 2020, when thousands of complaints about unsolicited text messages were reported via the 7726 Mobile UK Spam Reporting Service.

The investigating officer analysed the complaints submitted and established that nine separate message scripts were sent promoting high interest payday loans.

The messages contained unique hyperlinks to one of the following websites: loanpig.co.uk, bingoloans.co.uk and pmloans.co.uk, which are owned by Money Hive. When clicked on, the respective webpage would open and would generate a ‘loading’ bar which would ask the individual to wait while it gathered results, and the individual would then be presented with a loan offer.

The ICO discovered these messages were sent to individuals who had previously applied online for a loan with a Money Hive-operated website. The purpose of these messages was to redirect the applicant to the relevant website when they had failed to proceed with the loan offer presented while on the site.

However, the ICO found that prospective customers were forced to agree to receive a barrage of messages from both The Money Hive and associated lenders by signing up to the loan application. One recipient filed four separate complaints in July 2020 after receiving four separate messages within a 24-hour period, three of which were received between 9pm and 10pm.

In its ruling, the ICO states: “The Commissioner takes the view that these messages are unsolicited. Subscribers used The Money Hive websites, which advertised themselves as a ‘100%’ and ‘purely online’ service, as a means of obtaining a short-term loan offer. However, in order to proceed with the online application, individuals had no choice but to agree to receive an undefined number of contacts via text, email and telephone from The Money Hive and its third-party partners.

“The Money Hive used the individual’s mandatory agreement as a basis for engaging in its direct marketing campaign. Individuals used the service to obtain an online loan offer and had not requested this additional contact voluntarily; the Commissioner therefore takes the view that the marketing cannot be said to have been solicited.

“The fact that individuals were denied this choice at the outset of their application is evidenced by the high volume of complaints which were received regarding these messages.”

According to the ICO, there were 1,356 complaints made to the 7726 reporting service between March 26 2020 and September 8 2020 about The Money Hive, and a further 5,107 complaints between September 9 2020 and May 23 2021, with a number of further complaints being made from May 24 2021 and continuing into 2022.

The Money Hive has now been slapped with a £50,000 fine for a negligent breach of the Privacy & Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR), which resulted in 752,425 unlawful texts. It is not known whether the firm is planning to appeal.

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