DialADeal Scotland Ltd – €175,500 Fine (United Kingdom, 2021)

DialADeal Scotland Ltd is an organisation listed as a "business and domestic software development" company on the Companies House records. It used a 'spoofed' number to make a total of 1,376,255 direct marketing calls from August 2019 to March 2020, which led to the ICO receiving 213 complaints. One third of the recipients of these calls were made to users registered with the TPS, a register of numbers allocated to subscribers who have notified the ICO that they do not wish to receive unsolicited calls for direct marketing purposes. The calls related to non-existent "Green Deal" government energy saving schemes. In response to an investigation letter sent to the home address of one of the company's two directors, he sent an email stating it did not engage in any of such activities. The ICO was not convinced. The Commissioner held that DialADeal Scotland Ltd contravened Regulations 21 and 24 of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003. The recipients of the direct marketing calls it made were registered with the TPS and had not given their prior consent to receive them. The infringement was serious because the company actively took steps to prevent recipients from contacting it, failed to identify itself on the calls and provided false generic company names. It was also deliberate or negligent because the direct marketing calls were made about government schemes that did not exist and the ICO received a high number of complaints regarding them. As a result, the ICO issued a fine of €176,000 (£150,000).