A RENEWABLE energy company has been fined £90,000 for making thousands of nuisance calls.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has fined Solar Style Solutions Limited (SSSL) £90,000 for making over 125,000 nuisance calls to people registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS).

It is against the law to make marketing calls to numbers that have been registered with the TPS for more than 28 days, unless people have provided consent.

The ICO investigated SSSL between January 1 and April 29, 2019.

Over the four month period SSSL made 188,665 calls of which 126,019 were to TPS registered users and generated 29 complaints including: “It is primarily a disruption rushing to the phone only to discover it is an unsolicited call, and then annoying to discover that no matter how many times you ask to be removed from a list - and promises made to do so - that the calls keep coming. It annoys me that they have our number. Where did they get it, who sold it to them?"

The ICO found a level of naivety on the part of SSSL with its business practices and that it was relying on “good faith” alone with its purchased data.

Andy Curry, Head of Investigations at the ICO, said: “Nuisance calls are an invasion of people’s privacy that can cause great distress and worry, particularly where people have taken steps to protect themselves by signing up to the TPS. We will always take robust action against companies who we find are ignoring the law in pursuit of their own gain.

“Business owners operating in this field have a duty to both familiarise themselves with and comply with the law. Attempting to rely on ignorance or naivety or trying to pass the buck to suppliers will never be a valid defence.

“The law is simple and clear, businesses must not call numbers that are registered with the TPS unless they have valid consent to do so. The consequences for those that choose to flout the law strike at a company’s reputation, and balance sheet with fines and where necessary enforcement notices ordering firms to stop making calls.

“We were able to bring this company to account with the help of the public who took the time to complain to the TPS and us. We encourage anybody to sign up to the free TPS service and report any subsequent unwanted calls they receive.”

SSSL is one of four companies fined a total of £480,000, for making over 2.4m calls between them resulting in over 250 complaints to the ICO and the TPS.

The TPS is a free service for mobile and landline phone users that allows people to opt out of receiving cold calls.

The ICO became responsible for overseeing the TPS in December 2016.

To comply with the law, companies carrying out electronic marketing should subscribe to the TPS to receive the register of subscribers to screen against their own call lists.

Members of the public who believe they have been the victim of nuisance texts, calls or emails, should report them to the ICO, get in touch via live chat or call our helpline on 0303 123 1113.