Bradford-based bank fined for illegal marketing

A Bradford-based bank has been fined £75,000 by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) for sending illegal marketing texts and emails.

Vanquis Bank, which is part of Provident Financial, instigated a campaign to send 870,849 spam text messages and 620,000 spam emails to promote its credit cards. Both the emails and texts broke the law because the recipients had not consented to being sent such messages. Vanquis Bank has now been fined £75,000 by the ICO.

Vanquis Bank obtained the marketing lists used to send the messages from other organisations. It relied on indirect consent rather than checking itself that the correct level of consent had been obtained. The consent included non-specific, general wording, such as ‘trusted parties’ and ‘carefully selected third parties’.

The fine issued by the ICO to Vanquis Bank follows another earlier this year to Provident Personal Credit for spam texts. The ICO has also issued a legal notice ordering Vanquis Bank to ensure its practices comply with the law.

ICO Head of Enforcement Steve Eckersley said: “There are rules in place to protect people from the irritation, and in some cases anxiety and distress, spam texts and emails cause.

“People need to be properly informed about what they are consenting to. Telling them their details could be passed to ‘similar organisations’ or ‘selected third parties’ cannot be relied upon as specific consent.

“People were so exasperated by these messages that they complained to us.

“These firms should have taken responsibility for ensuring they had obtained clear and specific consent for the sending of the messages. They didn’t and that is unacceptable.”