Britain’s data privacy watchdog has slapped a fine of £90k ($120k) on a business that targeted people with intrusive marketing phone calls, despite them being registered with the official “Do Not Call” opt-out service.

AFK Letters Co Ltd (AFK) made more than 95,000 unsolicited marketing calls to Brits who had signed up with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS), in a clear breach of the UK’s electronic marketing laws, according to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). 

The company’s line of work is crafting official letters to help consumers claim refunds and/or compensation from firms they may have had unsatisfactory dealings with, says the regulator.

However, AFK used data collected via its own website and a third-party telephone survey company to make those thousands of marketing calls, without being able to demonstrate it had valid and specific consent from the people it contacted.

Furthermore, AFK’s third-party data supplier was found to be using consent statements which did not specifically name the company when asking for consent to be called. The ICO also says that AFK’s own privacy policy only mentioned contact by email, and not that people could expect to be called by them too.

An investigation by the ICO found that AFK failed to comply with Regulation 21 of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR), which requires organizations to have clear, informed and specific consent before making direct marketing calls. 

One complainant told the ICO that AFK called claiming she might be due a refund on some solar panels, stating her supplier had gone out of business. The complainant told AFK she had not consented to the call, regarding it as an intrusion and asked to be removed from their contact list.

AFK claimed that it was unable to provide evidence of consent because it deleted all customer data after three months. However, when challenged by the ICO, it was unable to provide consent records for certain calls that had been made within the previous three-month period. 

“AFK made calls to those registered with the Telephone Preference Service, and failed to keep proper records of consent for those it was calling as well as failing to properly disclose to people what they would be consenting to. This is a fundamental requirement of responsible and legally compliant direct marketing,” said Andy Curry, ICO Interim Director of Enforcement and Investigations.

The Telephone Preference Service (TPS) is an official “Do Not Call” register for landline and mobile numbers, intended to let people opt out of unsolicited marketing contact.

“This fine should serve as a clear warning to other organizations: if you cannot demonstrate valid consent for people on the Telephone Preference Service, you should not be contacting people. If people are being asked for consent to be contacted, it should be absolutely clear what this is for,” Curry added.

We reached out to AFK Letters for its side of the story, but its website appears to have been replaced by a GoDaddy holding page at the time of writing, and the firm’s listing with Companies House is also marked with an “Active Proposal to Strike Off.” ®