Bosses to face £500k fines in new nuisance call crackdown

Cold calling: Bosses are to be held personally liable for breaking the law under new crackdown
Shutterstock

The bosses of firms that make cold calls may be fined as much as £500,000 under new proposals to make them personally liable for breaking the law.

Only businesses themselves are currently liable for the huge fines, and some directors avoid paying by declaring bankruptcy before opening again under a new name.

But under the new proposals the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) will be given stronger powers to hold company bosses directly responsible for nuisance calls.

It comes after the ICO revealed last week that it had recovered more than half (54 per cent) of the £17.8 million in fines issued for cold calls since 2010.

In a statement in October 2016, Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham said making company directors responsible would stop them "ducking away from fines by putting their company into liquidation", adding: "We are inundated with complaints from people who are left shaken and distressed by the intrusion on their daily lives.

"We're quick to fine the companies responsible, but we've been speaking to the Government about going further than that because we must do all we can to help protect people from these calls."

In 2016/17, the Information Commissioner issued fines for nuisance marketing of more than £1.9 million to 23 companies.

The latest proposals follow estimates by Ofcom suggesting that British consumers were bombarded with 3.9 billion nuisance phone calls and texts last year.

Minister for Digital and the Creative Industries Margot James said: "Nuisance calls are a blight on society and we are determined to stamp them out.

"For too long a minority of company directors have escaped justice by liquidating their firms and opening up again under a different name.

"We want to make sure the Information Commissioner has the powers she needs to hold rogue bosses to account and put an end to these unwanted calls."

ICO deputy commissioner Steve Wood said: "We welcome these proposals from the Government to make directors themselves responsible for nuisance marketing.

"We have been calling for a change to the law for a while to deter those who deliberately set out to disrupt people with troublesome calls, texts and emails. These proposed changes will increase the tools we have to protect the public."

The consultation closes in August.

Alex Neill, Which? managing director of home services, said: "For too long, those who bombard people with calls have been able to skip fines and sidestep the rules by closing one business and opening another.

"The new proposals must result in an end to such dodgy practices so that company directors responsible for this everyday menace are properly held to account."

Additional reporting from the Press Association.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in