The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has ordered the owners of Tetrus Telecoms to pay £440,000 after an 18-month investigation found it sent as many as 840,000 unlawful spam texts per day over three years encouraging people to begin payment protection insurance (PPI) claims.
According to the investigation, the owners were making between £7,000 and £8,000 per day selling on the details of those replying to claims management companies (CMCs).
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The decision comes shortly after Stephen Sklaroff, director general of the Finance and Leasing Association (FLA) told delegates at the FLA Motor Finance Convention that 53,000 "unfounded" claims had been filed with automotive companies in the first nine months of the year. "When we say ‘unfounded’," explained Sklaroff, "we mean the products were never sold in the first place."
Karen Wagstaffe, director of training and compliance at Finance Cover Compliance at i-comply-online, described the decision as "a great step forward", and added that "ICO have also stated that they will, as a result of this investigation, target the CMCs that purchased customer information via these types of firms."
The fine is further good news for the industry regarding PPI claims a month after a long-running and high-profile legal challenge was withdrawn against Black Horse over the cost of commission of its PPI policy.
Further coverage of the FLA Motor Finance Convention will be published in the December issue of Motor Finance magazine.
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