Interesting Facts

A nuisance call company, Keurboom Communications Ltd, has been fined a record £400,000 for making nuisance calls. (The company often masked who was making the calls, which ranged from road traffic accident claims and PPI compensation, with some people receiving repeat calls, sometimes on the same day and during unsociable hours. Nuisance calls have been a problem in the UK for years, and what usually happens is when they are caught the firm declares bankruptcy, and avoids paying any fine. In 2016 the ICO (Information Commissioner's Office) issued fines totalling £1.923 million for nuisance marketing, but according to the Telegraph, out of 20 firms penalised, 15 went bust or declared themselves insolvent. I wonder if the courts will see a penny of this fine?)

According to research carried out by website uSwitch.com , 9 out of 10 landline-users in the UK are bombarded by cold calls – despite half of them being ex-directory. (8 out of 10 mobile phone users suffer too, and two-thirds also blitzed by spam text messages. One call centre in the UK has been sending out 6 million unsolicited calls a day, even British Gas made 7,000 cold calls to 900 homes over the course of 2012, about 8 calls to each household. I got one last night from a company conducting "surveys". I just said, politely, but firmly, "No thank you." Hung up, and then blocked that number.)