Massive fine for making 17m unwanted sales calls

A Coventry firm which made nearly 17m automated sales calls has been fined £260,000 by the the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

Easyleads was making automated calls about boiler grants to people who it didn’t have permission to contact.

ICO investigators received more than 550 complaints and found the firm deliberately misled people by referring to a government scheme and the offer of a free boiler.

Andy Curry, ICO Enforcement Group Manager, described the unwanted sales calls as a “modern day torment”.

He said: “We hear first-hand from people how utterly disruptive, annoying and sometimes distressing automated calls can be. Firms cannot expect to get away with intruding into people’s lives like this.”

The firm also broke the rules by not including a company name and contact details in the recorded message.

Easyleads was founded in 2015 and is yet to file accounts at Companies House, more than two months after the deadline.

The ICO said it “has made clear that it is committed to recovering fines it has issued and will work with insolvency practitioners and liquidators if a company moves to insolvency after being fined”.