A company attempting to sell life insurance has been fined by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) £80,000 due to their abusive spam calls. Pinnacle Life made over 47,000 spam calls from May 2021 to May 2022 to people who were registered on the Telephone Preference Service, the TPS, a free of charge platform whereby people put down their details if they did not wish to be contacted by marketing companies. Ignoring the principle of this platform, Pinnacle Life used the data to target people by aggressively attempting to sell life insurance products to them.
What makes this case quite distinctive is the level of complaints from the receiving parties that claimed the calls were ‘abusive’, ‘persistent’ and made them feel ‘anxious’. The callers largely ignored requests not to be contacted again and were rude in general.
For details and scripts of the telephone conversations, as well as comments from the ICO, read here.
The Head of Investigations at the ICO, Andy Curry, said that this case highlights how “important it is to report spam calls – it makes a real difference.” As a result of such reporting, companies who issued nuisance calls, texts and emails were collectively fined over £2,590,000 since April 2023. This shows how much impact a single complaint can have.
To read the original version of the ICO’s verdict issued on the 7th of March 2024, click here.
