Pension scheme cold caller fined £130,000 by UK data watchdog

2020-09-10 14:05

Britain's data watchdog says it has snared Swansea-based business CPS Advisory for making more than 100,000 "Unauthorised direct marketing calls" to people about their pensions, and subsequently fined the company £130,000.

Under a change to the Private and Electronics Communications Regulation in 2019, a firm can only make live calls to folks about work or a personal pension scheme if they are authorised to do so by the Financial Conduct Authority, or it is the trustee or manager of such a pension.

In either case, consent of the recipient must be given or a prior relationship with the caller must exist.

"Unwanted pension calls can cause real distress and even significant financial hardship to often vulnerable people, who can end up losing their hard-earned pension pot to scammers."

CPS Advisory was neither a trustee nor a manager of a pensions scheme and was not authorised by the FCA. The evidence CPS Advisory put forward to defend itself did not convince the ICO that valid consent has been granted, and so it deemed the call as a "Significant intrusion into the privacy the recipients of such calls."

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