Recently two PPI spammers were fined £440,000 for sending out lots of nuisance texts and calls, which were gathered illegally.  The two culprits, Gary McNeish and Chris Niebel sent out 840,000 spam texts a day from their company.

The ICO lawyers suggested that people could be entitled to compensation from the Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) mis-sold by banks, with other messages suggesting money could be made from making a personal injury claim.

These texts and calls have become a constant irritation for recipients and have resulted in complaints to the telecoms watchdogs.  But the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has taken action and fined the pair’s company Tetrus Telecoms £440,000.

If anyone responded to the texts the Tetrus Telecoms Company would save the names and details of respondents. Out of these leads their company would make around £8,000 a day by selling the details to claims companies.

The claims companies were warned that if they used illegal information they would also be fined up to £500,000 under the Data Protection Act.  A company involved in this instance was Accident Advice Helpline (AAH), but they denied any knowledge of the illegally obtained information.

This is the first instance in which the ICO have fined, but they are investigating other companies, so these PPI spammers need to watch out.

Leanne is the author of this article, a digital marketer researching personal injury lawyers.