A company has been fined £190,000 by Britain’s data watchdog for bombarding elderly people with nuisance calls while claiming to be selling devices designed to block unwanted calls.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said Elderly Aids Limited (EAL) had deliberately targeted elderly people, making nearly 760,000 cold calls to those registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) between May 2024 and February last year to promote call-blocking devices.
The ICO said complaints revealed EAL callers were “aggressive, misleading, and often failed to identify themselves”.
The TPS allows people and businesses to opt out of unsolicited sales and marketing calls.
It is illegal to make a live marketing call to anyone registered with the TPS, unless they have given permission to be contacted by a specific organisation.
EAL repeatedly ignored requests from the ICO for information and continued to make nuisance calls during the investigation, according to the ICO.
It also tried to strike itself off the Companies House register amid the probe, the ICO said.
Andy Curry, head of investigations at the ICO, said: “Not only did this company target vulnerable people who had explicitly asked not to be called – they harassed them to sell call-blocking devices.
“EAL showed a complete disregard for the law and the people they were hounding.
“This penalty should serve as a clear warning to any business that thinks the law does not apply to them – we will hold them to account for both exploiting people in this way and trying to avoid accountability.”