A cold-calling company has been fined £350,000 for making 46 million automated nuisance calls about potentially mis-sold payment protection insurance.
Prodial, which was based in Brighton, set out to generate leads for PPI mis-selling claims with recorded “spam” messages that were sent out across the country. The Information Commissioner’s Office handed out its biggest ever fine yesterday, although the company is now in the hands of liquidators.
Christopher Graham, the information commissioner, said: “This is one of the worst cases of cold calling we have ever come across. The volume of calls made in just a few months was staggering. This was a company that knew it was breaking the law.”
The watchdog received more than 1,000 complaints about Prodial. According to The Argus, Louis Kidd, 27, launched Prodial Limited in November 2014 from his mother’s house in Woodingdean, a suburb of Brighton and Hove.
He sold it to Phil Carrington, a business partner, for £40,000 last July. During its last three months of trading, it had a turnover of £100,000 a month.
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Complainants said they were called repeatedly at all times of the day. Often there was no opt-out and one person said they felt helpless that they could do nothing to stop the intrusive calls.
About 12 million people have secured compensation over the PPI mis-selling scandal, with an average payout of £1,875.