Two home improvement companies have been fined a total of £370,000 for making hundreds of thousands of unlawful marketing calls to people who had asked not to be contacted.
Thermotech Wall and Loft Surveys Ltd (TWLS) has been fined £240,000 and Jacksons Marketing Ltd (JML) has been fined £130,000 by us following investigations into calls about loft insulation, home surveys and government grants.
Alongside the fines, both companies were also issued with enforcement notices ordering them to stop making marketing calls without consent.
The same person, Thomas Vickrage, from Bournemouth, was a director of TWLS and suspected of directing the activities of JML
– Andy Curry, ICO Head of Investigations, commented,
“These companies targeted some of the most vulnerable in our society – they called older people and those who had clearly asked to be left alone, leaving them frightened to answer their own phones. That is completely unacceptable.
“We will not hesitate to take action against those who exploit people in this way, and we will follow the evidence wheever it leads – including to those who try to evade accountability by creating new companies when complaints mount up.”
Both companies were registered in England — JML in Hampshire and TWLS in London — and used contact centres in Bournemouth and overseas to carry out their operations.
Thermotech Wall and Loft Surveys Ltd
Over a six-month period, TWLS made 575,000 calls to numbers registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS), often using so-called Avatar ‘robo-call’ software operated through overseas contact centres. This is a technology which gave the call recipients the impression they were talking to a person from the UK – but were in fact scripted lines recorded by voice actors and played by call centre agents. Complainants described receiving multiple calls every day, even after explicitly asking for them to stop, with callers identifying themselves as being from a “community protection project.”
Among the complaints we received were messages from people left distressed and frightened by the volume and nature of the calls:
“I am a vulnerable pensioner… please stop.”
“Calls scare me.”
Jacksons Marketing Ltd
Over an 11-month period, JML made more than 230,000 calls to TPS-registered numbers. The calls related to loft insulation, surveys and government grants. Recipients reported that callers suggested their existing insulation could be hazardous to health and dangerous, and that their personal details had been provided by the government – both of which were false.
Complaints we received said:
“Fear mongering about downgraded and dangerous fibreglass insulation that the government has downgraded from an energy point of view and is hazardous to my health.”
“Said we could get a government grant to insulate our home. He would send a surveyor around to see how much heat loss we had and would give us a discount on any work that needed carrying out.”
Mr Curry said:
“Falsely claiming to represent a government scheme to gain people’s trust or suggesting their home could be putting their health at risk, are deeply manipulative tactics. People have a right to protection from this kind of intrusive and misleading contact.”
The rules on marketing calls
Organisations making live marketing calls must not call numbers registered with the TPS unless they have the person’s prior consent to do so. Businesses making automated calls face even stricter rules – consent must be freely given, specific and informed, and given directly to the caller.
