Agencies/London
Two companies which appear in BBC3 series The Call Centre have been issued with fines totalling close to a quarter of a million pounds for nuisance calls, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has said.
Nationwide Energy Services has received a penalty of £125,000, while We Claim You Gain has been hit with a £100,000 fine. Both companies are part of Save Britain Money, based in Swansea.
The penalties include the first one issued against a company linked to nuisance calls relating to payment protection insurance (PPI), the ICO added.
The companies feature in fly-on-the wall docu-soap The Call Centre, which follows the ups and downs of chief executive Nev Wilshire and his staff at the third largest call centre in Wales.
Wilshire has been likened by some to David Brent, Ricky Gervais’s character from sitcom The Office - so much so that Gervais has even commented on their similarities on Twitter.
ICO director of operations Simon Entwisle said: “While the activities of Nev and his call centre employees have provided entertainment for many, they hide a bigger problem within the cold-calling industry. People have the legal right not to receive marketing calls and these companies have paid the price for failing to respect people’s wishes.”
Penalties were issued after the companies were found to be responsible for more than 2,700 complaints to the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) or reports to the ICO using its online survey, between May 26, 2011, and the end of last December.
Neither company carried out adequate checks to see whether the people they were calling had registered with the TPS, which is a legal requirement under rules governing electronic marketing, the ICO said.
The ICO has now issued penalties totalling more than three-quarters of a million pounds to companies that have breached these regulations, while a further 10 investigations are going on.