Cold call firms 'annoying' consumers to be fined £500,000 under UK government proposals
Companies behind nuisance phone calls or texts may find their days are numbered following a UK proposal to prosecute firms for annoying landline owners.
Sajid Javid seeks to tackle cold callers
Following a six week consultation to tackle rogue marketing companies announced earlier this year, experts felt the burden of proof required by the information commissioner’s office to impose a monetary fine should be reduced.
Currently, companies have to cause "substantial damage or substantial distress" to consumers but under the proposal, cold-callers repeatedly causing “annoyance, inconvenience or anxiety” could be fined as much as £500,000.
Sajid Javid, UK culture secretary, said: “Companies have bombarded people with unwanted marketing calls and texts, but have escaped punishment because they did not cause enough harm.
“Being called day after day may not be ‘substantially distressing’, but that doesn’t make it acceptable.”
He added: “I want to make it easier for companies to face the consequences of ignoring the law and subjecting us to calls or texts we have said we don’t want.”
Simon Hughes, justice and civil liberties minister, said: “Being pestered by marketing calls and texts is annoying at the best of times but at its worst it can bring real misery for the people on the receiving end.
"This government has already increased the level of fine available to punish rogue companies and now we want to make it easier to stamp it out by lowering the threshold for taking action against these companies so the information commissioner can move more quickly.”
Earlier this month, Ed Vaizey, the minister of state for culture and the digital economy, said the proposals would help protect the “most vulnerable households from nuisance scams”.