Claims Firm Fined In Nuisance Calls Crackdown

A claims firm that bombarded consumers with more than 1.3 million spam messages has been fined £80,000 as part of a wider crackdown against companies behind nuisance calls and texts.

UKMS Money Solutions (UKMS) used lists of mobile phone numbers it had bought from data brokers to contact people encouraging them to make claims for payment protection insurance (PPI), the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said.

It said the fine issued to the firm was the first of three penalties totalling £250,000 it will issue this week to companies behind nuisance texts and calls, bringing the total number of fines issued over the last four months over nuisance marketing to £1m.

The ICO said Birmingham-based UKMS did not check that those it called had agreed to receive marketing texts – something it was legally required to do.

It said a total of 1,442 people complained during the nine-week campaign between April and June this year. No one from UKMS could be reached for comment.

Meanwhile, the ICO is this week writing to 1,000 firms, known as list brokers, asking them how they comply with the law when compiling and selling lists of names and numbers used by cold callers.

The companies being written to are firms registered as data controllers with the ICO, which indicates they trade or share personal data, some of which may be for marketing purposes. The ICO said it had power to take legal action where companies did not respond.

Information Commissioner Christopher Graham said the ICO was "getting the job done" in dealing with the sector, which he said prompts 180,000 complaints a year from customers.