Breach details
| What | Breach of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR). A high volume of unsolicited marketing calls from two companies both owned by “Save Britain Money Ltd” to consumers that had registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) that continued despite customer complaints and requests to unsubscribe. |
| How much | An unknown number of direct marketing calls resulting in over 2,700 complaints to the TPS or ICO. |
| When | May 2011 – December 2012 |
| Why | Did not screen outbound calls against the TPS register. |
Regulatory action
| Regulator | ICO | Action | Nationwide Energy Services: Monetary penalty of £ 125,000 We Claim you Gain: Monetary penalty of £ 100,000 |
| When | 17 June2013 |
Why the regulator acted
| Breach of act | Breach of Regulation 21: repeatedly ignored provisions that marketing calls should not be made to individuals who had registered with TPS. |
| Known or should have known | Both companies had been repeatedly contacted by the TPS and ICO and were made aware they were in contravention of the Act. The TPS contacted Nationwide Energy Services on 1,601 occasions and We Claim You Gain 1,070 times. |
| Likely to cause damage or distress | The sheer volume of complaints should have indicated that distress would be caused and individual complaints to the ICO detailed varying degrees of actual distress. |