The boss in BBC Three reality series The Call Centre was counting the cost today after two of his companies were fined a total of £225,000 for making nuisance sales calls.
Nev Wilshire — whose motivational singalongs, bad jokes and matchmaking techniques have led to comparisons with David Brent of TV sitcom The Office — is chief executive of Swansea-based telephone sales business Save Britain Money Ltd.
The £60 million-a-year business makes hundreds of thousands of calls a year, focusing on mis-sold Payment Protection Insurance, boiler replacements and switching fuel providers.
The two companies which make up the business have been fined for failing to check adequately whether people they called had registered with the Telephone Preference Service, which screens out sales and marketing calls.
The Information Commissioner’s Office, or ICO, which fined Nationwide Energy Services £125,000 and We Claim You Gain £100,000, said the sums include the first penalties linked to nuisance calls over PPI.
The penalties were issued after 2,700 complaints to the Telephone Preference Service or the ICO between May 2011 and the end of December last year.
In a statement, the two companies said they “remain committed to the best interests of our customers at all times”.
They did not accept that issuing fines was the appropriate course of action, and said they would appeal.
Call centres have an obligation under regulations governing electronic marketing to check whether people are registered with the cold call screening service. Simon Entwisle, director of operations for the ICO, said the investigation went on for more than a year.
“We’ve given the companies ample opportunities to put things right, but unfortunately they’ve not been able to stop the complaints flowing in about their cold calls.” The ICO has fined companies in breach of regulations a total of more than £750,000 and is investigating 10 more cases.
Mr Wilshire, 54, has built up a cult TV following as he urges his 700 staff to “smile as you dial” at “Swansea’s third biggest call centre”. The BBC said it has no plans to stop broadcasting the programme.
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“The Call Centre is a highly successful observational documentary,” said a spokesman. “The BBC purely documents this workplace and the lives of those involved in it. The Call Centre, like all BBC programmes, went through robust editorial processes and compliance. We are confident it is a balanced and fair representation of life in that place of work.”
