Security News > 2022 > February > Welsh home improvement biz fined £200,000 over campaign of 675,478 nuisance calls

Home2Sense Ltd, a home improvement biz, is nursing a £200,000 financial penalty from the UK's data watchdog for making well over half a million marketing calls to people that registered to opt out of such botheration.

The company, based in Lampeter, Wales, was behind 675,478 nuisance calls between June 2020 and March 2021, punting insulation services to people signed up to the Telephone Preference Service.

During the course of its investigation, the Information Commissioner's Office was told by Home2Sense that the customer data it had bought was from an "Unknown source", pointing the finger of blame at its own staff for not checking the numbers they called against the TPS database.

Some 60 customers had complained to the regulator, and the ICO found Home2Sense was using different names when making these unsolicited calls, including Cozy Lift, Warner Homes, and Comfier Homes - another practice that is illegal.

The complaints included pushy salespeople not taking no for an answer; one who claimed the caller said they were a local surveyor and another saying Home2Sense reps kept calling to ask to speak to their late mother who had died a decade earlier.

The ICO found Home2Sense broke regulation 21 and 24 of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulation and fined the business £200,000.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2022/02/03/ico_home2sense_fine/