Information Commissioners office fines Glasgow firm £80,000 for making nuisance calls.

Glasgow firm Xternal Property Renovations broke the law by making more than 109,000 calls to people registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS).

People registered with the TPS have opted out of receiving marketing calls.

The firm, which is listed on the Partick Thistle Fc website as a sponsor, has its registered office in The Pentagon Centre on Washington Street, Glasgow, and provides property and maintenance repairs services, should have screened the list of people it planned to call against the details of TPS subscribers and made sure its telesales staff knew how to comply with the law.

Examples of complaints about the calls made by Xternal Property Renovations include:

“I get these calls from early in the morning until late at night. I’m disabled and I worry about these calls.”

“I was concerned about how this company got my details – particularly my name. My number is TPS-registered and has been ex-directory for more than 30 years.”

Xternal Property Renovations has also been issued with a legal notice compelling it to stop instigating the unlawful marketing calls.

Ken Macdonald, Head of ICO Regions, said: “Nuisance marketing, whether it’s by calls to people’s landline or mobile, or through spam texts, causes disruption, annoyance and, in the worst cases, serious upset.

“We issue fines like these to firms behind nuisance marketing to send a clear message that such action will not be tolerated.”

He added: “The ICO is looking forward to the commencement of our new powers, announced by the government last year, which will allow us to fine the directors of nuisance marketing firms as well as the companies themselves. This will enable us to take even more of a stand against the firms causing distress and intrusion to people’s lives.”

The ICO’s investigations into these firms were prompted by complaints from members of the public. People can report nuisance calls, texts and emails at ico.org.uk/concerns. Spam texts can also be reported by forwarding them to 7726.