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Nuisance Call Firm Keurboom Hit With Record Fine (bbc.com)
An anonymous reader writes: A cold-calling firm has been fined a record $515,000 by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) for making almost 100 million nuisance calls. Keurboom Communications called people, sometimes at night, to see if they were eligible for road-accident or PPI compensation, the ICO said. It breached privacy laws by calling people without their consent. The company has since gone into liquidation but the ICO said it was committed to recovering the fine. It said it had received more than 1,000 complaints about automated calls from the Bedfordshire-registered company. The ICO said Keurboom Communications called some people repeatedly and during unsocial hours. It also hid its identity so that people would find it harder to complain. "The unprecedented scale of its campaign and Keurboom's failure to co-operate with our investigation has resulted in the largest fine issued by the Information Commissioner for nuisance calls," said Steve Eckersley, head of enforcement at the ICO.
They will just abscond with their ill-gotten profits and form another company beyond the reach of the long arm of the law to continue raping and pillaging phone lines.
slashdot: A failed experiment.
$515,000 is not much for a large business (same as 5 telemarketing employees for a year approximately). Even if they do pay, it's unlikely to make a difference to their behavior.
the problem here is that the way these businesses are setup the fines do nothing. They simply liquidate or go bankrupt. It should be criminal charges against the owners, pure and simple.
In October, the government announced plans to let the ICO fine company directors as well as their businesses.
So 100 million calls costs 400k? That sounds like a competitive rate. Far from being a deterrent its also a guarantee they can't be sued from once they are fined. 2 for the price of 1.
I repeat my call for unforgeable Caller ID. If the Telco can't verify the actual caller phone number and identity, it should present "untrusted" or some words to that effect.
The argument 'this can't be done' doesn't sound credible to me, it implies the Phone Company doesn't know who to bill. Yes, this could be a significant change to Telco switches. But they've been facilitating these kinds of frauds for way too long.
This will not stop nuisance calls, but it will make it MUCH EASIER to block or ignore them.
This is akin to punishing a bank robber by making them give back stolen money. Until the perpetrators of this constant, nation-wide harassment are given hefty jail times (or better yet, dragged into the street and beaten) the unending robocall plague will continue.
I wish we had something like this in the US. /sarc
That is more of a license or a tax than a real fine. Particularly when those whom made out can easily fold the company and likely not pay anything. Now theoretically there might be a criminal charge and they could go up the ladder and seize assets of those behind the company- but given the size of the fine its not really going to make a difference. They could easily pay that fine and setup shop all over again because its cheaper to do this cold calling stuff than any other type of advertising. Ever try Google or Facebook? It's a heck of a lot more expensive than 5/1000 of a cent.
If their violations were so obvious, what case can be made for going after their clients? I mean, sue the people who hired them to make the solicitation calls.
The whole "but we didn't know" excuse shouldn't hold water for a vendor that had numerous public complaints and bad press about illegal business practices.
If people really want to stop this practice, then take away the profitability.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Yes, this is a US website, but it's a UK story. Why in the world is the figure given in dollars?
So they got fined $.005 or half a cent per call? Ya.. much bad fine... such deterrence... wow.
$515,000 dollars / 100,000,000 calls = 0.515 pennies per call. A dinky surcharge to continue operations, wouldn't you say?
Compare that with this. $675,000 dollars divided by 30 songs = $22,500 per song.
Finally solid proof that businesses aren't people. If they were the fines would be the comparable.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
The fine should have been at least a dollar a call -- $100 million, not a measly $0.00515 per call.
Then it is a good thing you didn't.
Arrest people.
You know this about a company in the UK, right?
Nuisance Call Firm Keurboom Hit With Nuisance Fine
Enhanced 911 refers to the ability of the 911 Communications Center to receive Automatic Number Identification and Automatic Location Identification also known as (ANI/ALI). Enhanced 911 Centers employ technology far beyond that available to the general public such as “Caller ID”. In fact even if you have an unlisted number or caller ID block, when you call 911 we still get your information.
If they made 100 million nuisance calls, the company officers should be required to answer 100 million nuisance calls before they're allowed free. Because collectively that's how much of everyone's time they wasted with their calls. (And to save you the math, at 10 seconds per call, that's 32 years answering 24/7.)
They levy fines because that's more money for cronies. Arresting people means less money for cronies.