Nuisance callers to be fined up to £1 million in government crackdown

A government crackdown on nuisance calls could see those who make them hit with fines of up to £1 million.

The calls, which can be particularly distressing to elderly and vulnerable people, make up 40 per cent of all phone calls in the UK, it emerged earlier this year.

From next spring, bosses who break privacy rules set out by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) could be personally fined up to £500,000. If a company has multiple directors, each of them will be liable for the penalty.

This “tough new stance” taken by the government is supposed to enforce data protection laws and protect those most affected by unwanted marketing calls.

Matt Hancock, Minister of State for Digital and Culture, called nuisance callers a “blight on society” which cause “significant distress to elderly and vulnerable people”.

“We have been clear that we will not stand for this continued harassment, and this latest amendment to the law will strike another blow to those businesses and company bosses responsible,” he said in a statement.

A quarter of people receive between 11 and 20 nuisance calls a month, according to analysis by call-blocking firm TrueCall, which found that older customers received 46 per cent more cold calls on average.

These are often selling products including Payment Protection Insurance (PPI), banking products and double glazing as well as law firms encouraging people to make accident claims.

Companies and organisations should be able to demonstrate that specific consent was given “knowingly and freely” before they make live or pre-recorded marketing calls, according to ICO regulations.

They must carry out “rigorous checks” if consent was originally given through a third party, and the regulations state that “indirect consent is highly unlikely to be valid for calls, texts or emails.”

Directors will be held responsible to stop rogue businesses declaring bankruptcy and then opening again under a different name in an attempt to avoid paying the penalties.

Companies will also be forced to display their caller ID and work with Trading Standards to provide call-blocking services to the most vulnerable.

Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham said the ICO was “inundated with complaints from people who are left shaken and distressed by the intrusion on their daily lives.”

“The people running nuisance call companies have little regard for the anxiety and upset they cause all in the name of turning a fast profit,” she said.

A collection of complaints published this year included reports of calls received in the early hours, and one in which an 84-year-old tripped and fell on her way to reach the phone in the middle of the night.

“Receiving a call from a withheld number at 4:40 in the morning is an extremely unpleasant experience. I have elderly parents therefore the first thing I thought of was that something had happened to one of them,” said one complaint.

“I am complaining on behalf of my 84 year old mother. She lives alone. When the phone rang in the middle of the night she thought it was a family emergency/death. She tripped in her anxiety to reach the phone and fell and badly twisted her leg,” said another.

One elderly person wrote: “I am 72 years old and have a heart condition. It left me wondering why I had received it and took some time to get back to sleep”.

In February, a Brighton-based company was fined a record £350,000 for bombarding members of the public with more than 46 million automated sales calls regarding mis-sold PPI claims.

Prodial Limited, a company launched by 27-year-old Louis Kidd from his mother’s house, generated an estimated £1 million turnover from unwanted cold calls.

This year, the ICO says it has fined firms responsible for more than 70 million calls and nearly 8 million spam text messages.