The battle against rogue marketing firms has claimed yet another scalp, with Glasgow-based company DialADeal Scotland being whacked with a £150,000 for making more than half a million illegal marketing calls, and the directors’ attempts to wind up the business to avoid coughing up have already been thwarted.
According to an Information Commissioner’s Office investigation, the company made unsolicited calls about non-existent Green Deal energy saving schemes, including boiler and window replacement, loft insulation and home improvement grants.
These were made to telephone numbers which had been registered with the Telephone Preference Service, in breach of Privacy & Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR).
The calls, which were made between August 2019 and March 2020, generated more than 500 complaints to the ICO and the TPS by TPS subscribers, one of the highest numbers ever received.
The complaints suggested that DialADeal Scotland had used several false trading names and the ICO’s investigation found the company also disguised the telephone numbers operatives were calling from – this is also illegal.
Complaints included: “Man knew my name and said he was from the green allowance team and they are in our area at the moment and we may be eligible for money off home improvements under the green allowance scheme.”
Another stated: “They said they were from Home Advice Unit and that they were calling all the houses in the KY area to see if they were eligible for some home improvements after the recent bad weather (of which we have had none, incidentally).
“She asked me to confirm that I still lived at my address and I asked how she had my details. She said they were on a screen in front of her, but didn’t know how they had been obtained. I asked her not to call again and hung up.”
The ICO has also issued the company with an Enforcement Notice ordering it to stop making unsolicited marketing calls and has successfully blocked DialADeal Scotland’s attempt to be struck off the Companies House register to try to avoid paying any fine.
Incorporated on September 25 2018, the company is listed as a “business and domestic software development” firm, with two named directors, Calum Mckay Kirkpatrick and Yvonne McCuaig. Both were also directors of a company called DialADeal UK, which was dissolved on September 18 2018, one week before DialADeal Scotland was created.
Kirkpatrick and McCuig are also co-directors of another business, Simple Lead Ltd, which was incorporated on June 9 2021.
ICO head of regions Ken Macdonald said: “DialADeal Scotland were breaking the law on a number of fronts, not only were they making calls to people without their permission, they were also hiding their identity using false names and spoof numbers.
“Calls about Green Deal schemes can be a real problem as people often believe they are legitimate but, thanks to the complaints made by the public, we’ve been able to take action.
“Companies making similar nuisance calls should take note, we use our powers where we see serious breaches of the law.”
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