MSE News: Cold-calling firm Keurboom fined record £400,000 by watchdog 11 May 2017 at 2:00PM in Phones & TV 5 replies 1.9K views

Former_MSE_Ben_S

A cold-calling firm has been handed a record £400,000 fine after it made nearly 100 million nuisance calls in just 18 months. ...

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'Cold-calling firm Keurboom fined record £400,000 by watchdog'

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Castle

Liquidators were appointed on 23rd March 2017 and there are no assets; so good luck getting that fine!

Ectophile

There's no chance that the money will be recovered.

The chances are that the people behind it will just set up a new telemarketing company under another name.

Ian011

The problem with current regulation is that it only tries to chase after businesses after the calls have been made – and most of the fines issued by ICO remain unpaid. Companies simply close down and move on.

Claims management companies are regulated by the Claims Management Regulator. Their rules prevent claims management companies and their agents from pounding the streets and banging on doors to drum up business as it causes too much nuisance.

Using the telephone to call millions of people in the hope of finding the few people who may want your service is not an effective marketing method. It causes too much nuisance. It is time the regulations were extended to ban the use of the telephone for finding leads.

As companies that breach CMR regulations can be closed down, this regulation would be very effective. It would cover both companies making calls and companies using leads sourced by telephone.

Current usage of leads collected by telephone and passed onto another company all revolves around the ridiculous notion that someone can somehow "consent" to unsolicited calls from companies they have never heard of.

The number of nuisance calls continues to rise. A decade of regulation has failed and has been seen to fail as it does not address the core issue – stopping the calls being made in the first place.

[Deleted User]

Ian011 wrote: »

Current usage of leads collected by telephone and passed onto another company all revolves around the ridiculous notion that someone can somehow "consent" to unsolicited calls from companies they have never heard of.

While I agree they are "nuisance" calls to many people, if they all failed to sign anyone up to whatever they are selling then these companies would naturally fold and the calls end. The truth is that cold calling is still very profitable and people do willingly purchase as a result of them.

Ian011

The point is that it is unacceptable for a business to cause nuisance to thousands or tens of thousands of people in order to find the handful of people who did want their services. The nuisance far outweighs the benefits. This is why those companies are prevented from knocking on doors. Regulation must be brought in to prevent these calls from being made. There are plenty of other ways they could promote their services, including radio, TV, newspaper and magazine adverts, flyers, billboards, etc. In the context of cold calls from companies you have never heard of, arguments about 'consent' are spurious.