Sale firm fined for cold calling numbers up to fifty times a day says “It was not us”

A Sale company  fined £180,000 by the “cold call” regulator vehemently denies making the calls in a dramatic development to the story.

” Advanced VoIP Solutions Ltd (AVS) vehemently deny all accusations that the ICO have made. We have not made any of the calls that the ICO accuses us of,” a spokeswoman said.

They have been fined by the Information Commissioner’s Office for allegedly making “cold calls” up to fifty times a day to the same number. It followed a lengthy investigation into Advanced VoIP Solutions Ltd, and other South Manchester companies by the Information Commissioner’s Office, after more than six thousand complaints were made.

 But in a statement AVS said they deny any involvement: “We are a small telecoms company that provides telephone systems and telephone numbers to various businesses. 

“A range of numbers that we had sub-allocated to a reseller was subsequently used in a number of marketing campaigns by various third party businesses. These calls were investigated by the ICO, as there had been complaints that some calls had been made without prior permission of the recipient of the call.

 “In February this year we received an enforcement notice from the ICO to cease making marketing calls without prior permission of the recipient of the call. We were very surprised to receive this enforcement notice, as we had never made any of the calls and had made this fact very clear to the ICO, as well as providing as much information as we could to assist their ongoing investigations. However, we did take action and stopped the use of the telephone numbers to the reseller. 

 “We began legal action and a tribunal hearing date had been set for later this year between AVS and the ICO. In the process of this, responses received from the ICO acknowledged that AVS had not themselves made the calls, we therefore find it very strange,  inconsistent and irresponsible that the ICO have released articles stating that we had made the calls. 

“We also find it incredibly irregular that the ICO has issued us with a fine of such magnitude in advance of the tribunal hearing.

 “This action by the ICO is extremely perplexing because it does not address or punish the perpetrators in any way (if it is in fact the case that calls were made without permission). Also it has very unfairly put into jeopardy, the jobs of employees of AVS, ” said the spokeswoman in a statement.

According to the ICO the company co-ordinated its call campaign from Eyebrow Cottage, on Washday Road, in Sale, but AVS say they haven’t operated from Sale’s oldest building, for the last nine months.

 A ICO spokesman said:”Complainants described receiving recorded messages relating to personal protection insurance, packaged bank accounts and flight delays. Some even described calls being repeated, sometimes up to 50 per day to single households, even though they had followed instructions in the message to opt out of the calls.”

 Steve Eckersley, head of enforcement at the Information  Commissioner’s Office said:

“The number of complaints in this case is just a drop in the ocean compared to the millions of calls we think this company has made.

“We have sent out a clear message to companies who behave in this way – however much you try and dodge the law, it won’t work, and we will act.”

This action was part of a wider investigation into a complicated network of companies which included an ICO raid on a call centre in south Manchester.

At the height of the automated call campaign, two phone network providers claimed their services had been disrupted by the large number of calls being made by the business.

“Earlier this year an ICO enforcement notice ordered Advance VoIP  to stop making nuisance calls or face legal action in a crackdown on the cottage industry behind the millions of automated calls.

“Investigators suspected the leads generated would have been used by the network of firms involved to make sizable profits,” said the ICO spokesman.

The law on making automated calls playing recorded messages is stricter than on other marketing calls. Organisations can only make automated marketing calls to people who have specifically consented to receiving them.

To report a cold call or to complain to the ICO call 0303 123 1113 or go to ico.org.uk/concerns/.