A firm has been fined £200,000 for making over 11 million "unlawful nuisance calls" to the public

[Chippy_Tea]

This has made my day i hope they now go on and get lots more of these irritating barstewards.



Brazier Consulting Services Ltd (BCS) has been ordered to pay the fine by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) after it received 316 complaints.
BCS had "bombarded" people despite being told to stop and had caused "real distress", the data watchdog said.
The Leeds-based company has been approached for a comment.

• More stories from Yorkshire

Following its investigation, the ICO said the claims management company "made repeated nuisance calls to people about PPI" and had "failed to evidence sufficient consent to call any of the complainants".
The watchdog also found "no evidence" to suggest the firm provided staff training on privacy and electronic communications regulations.

Aggressive calls
Among the complaints received included one describing the caller from BCS as "aggressive in manner and I felt quite threatened by his attitude".
The complainant said they had "never" contacted the company about PPI and wanted them to "stop these aggressive phone calls".
ICO investigations manager Natasha Longson said: "It's clear from the complaints we received that these calls caused real distress. What's more, the firm continued to bombard people by phoning even when they'd been asked to stop.
"It's thanks to members of the public that this firm came to our attention and we could take action to bring a stop to this. I would encourage anyone pestered by other rogue operators to report them to the ICO."
Leeds firm fined £200k over millions of unlawful PPI calls - BBC News

 

[jof]

Except now a lot of spam.calls are coming from automated systems using mobile phone Sims.
The sort you can buy with unlimited talk minutes for £10 a month. Then next month they will use a new SIM & new number.

Need mobile operators to monitor for "reasonable use" and stamp on these scum

 

[Irishwizard]

I didn't realise a brewing forum was now crime watch..

 

[Chippy_Tea]

You have posted on this forum long enough to know what it's all about, if you have forgotten I have posted the forum description below to save you asking the same question again in the future.

As has been said many times before if you don't like the subject in the thread title don't open it it's not compulsory!

The Snug
This is the place for all non brewing chat.

 

[Gingerbrews]

I'd love to learn where these people operate from; so I could go round and bombard them with something wet, warm and brown

 

[jof]

I'd love to learn where these people operate from; so I could go round and bombard them with something wet, warm and brown

You can't tell by the phone number any more as you can buy a viop number for just about anywhere in the country.

I got a VoIP number (couldn't get my towns number batch - it's for the town down the road, but area code the same). I could have picked any location in the country. But I did have to register my address for emergency services before they let me use the number.

Reason is, calls to landlines are less than 2p a minute, so it's a no brainer to use that on my mobile & computer compared to cost of landline/mobile provider.

I don't use either enough to pay for call packages before you ask & have use of the wife's mobile (which does have monthly minutes) if needed.

 

[MmmBeer]

I report 2-4 of these scam calls every week to the ICO. The trouble is the majority of them come from India, so the ICO probably has little jurisdiction over them.

Depending on my mood, I either pick up the phone and remain silent for two seconds, so that the autodialler terminates the call, or accept the call, but constantly distract the caller from their pre-planned script and just generally waste their time. Then report it to the ICO.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I know I am repeating myself but if it saves members having these calls it's worth it.
I have call minder on my line it's provided free by my ISP if someone phones a computer asks their name and tells them I will not answer if I do not recognise the name, I haven't had a scam or cold call in years.

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

(...) accept the call, but constantly distract the caller from their pre-planned script and just generally waste their time.

The spam calls I get (on the mobiles, since we finally ditched the home phone) never seem to be actual people these days - just voice synthesisers claiming that HMRC are about to bring proceedings against us for not paying our taxes etc etc.

Normally I just add the originating number to the 'blocked caller' list, but recently these guys seem to have changed their tactics as the calls started coming from a whole block of numbers 020 3896 6xxx where the last three digits were different every time.

Incidentally 020 3986 etc are NOT London area numbers, but 'non-geographic' codes for people who want to appear to be in London in order to make it more likely you'll pick up the phone.

Unfortunately mobiles don't typically allow you to block a whole number range - but I found a good free app on the Apple Store that enabled me to do so: ‎Simple Call Blocker (also available for Android).

Problem fixed.

 

[dad_of_jon]

I'd love to learn where these people operate from; so I could go round and bombard them with something wet, warm and brown

Sorry, mate there's no way I'm letting you throw my barley wine or dunkleweisen beer at them.

 

[dad_of_jon]

I report 2-4 of these scam calls every week to the ICO. The trouble is the majority of them come from India, so the ICO probably has little jurisdiction over them.

Depending on my mood, I either pick up the phone and remain silent for two seconds, so that the autodialler terminates the call, or accept the call, but constantly distract the caller from their pre-planned script and just generally waste their time. Then report it to the ICO.

When I get called about my recent accident (this happened way before I was t-boned on my bike) I reply... what details do you have? - They hang up.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

If you are using an android phone and receive a call from a scammer or cold caller you can block them by doing this -

Locate the number in your call log and press down on it until a window appears with a "Block" option.

I know many will already know this but I only found out fairly recently.
.

 

[Clint]

I've had a constant missed call on my mobile which I managed to catch the other day...it was some woman trying to flog me insurance on something or other....I wasn't in the best of moods and told her to stop talking **** and get on with it...she sort of went quiet and seemed a bit put out,apologised and rang off. I haven't had another off them.

 

[Gwen]

I just get fed up with the amount of calls I get in a day on both landline and mobile. I have blocked them but things like the HMRC seem to have so many numbers even mobiles

 

[latchy]

my missus got one of the "you've been in an accident" calls, when she was asked what the outcome of the accident was, she told them it was fatal, they hung up.