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Nuisance call firm Keurboom hit with record fine

bogle 9y ago
2-bit operation folds, fine unpaid. Director and his missus (1 share each) walk away unscathed.
- victorNicollet 9y ago
  > In October, the government announced plans to let the ICO fine company directors as well as their businesses.
- DanBC 9y ago
  Directors are personally liable for ICO fines as a result of PECR infringement. At least, that was the plan, I'm not sure if this was enacted: http://www.wablegal.com/uk-directors-personally-liable-nuisance-calls/ http://www.wablegal.com/uk-directors-personally-liable-nuisa...
  - bogle 9y ago
    Nope, not enacted and now kicked into the long grass.
- tgb 9y ago
  > In October, the government announced plans to let the ICO fine company directors as well as their businesses. "Making directors responsible will stop them avoiding fines by putting their company into liquidation," the ICO said. Can't come soon enough!
- digitalronin 9y ago
  Not necessarily; > From Spring 2017, firm directors can each be fined up to £500,000 by the Information Commissioner’s Office, if they are found to be in breach of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-clamps-down-on-nuisance-call-crooks https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-clamps-down-on...
- _pmf_ 9y ago
  The magic of limited liability. It's the codified concept of privatizing profits and socializing losses.
  - easytiger 9y ago
    It really is not
heliodor 9y ago
Until our government or phone companies fix this problem in the US, I don't see another way to make a difference other than answering the phone, getting put through to a human being, and wasting their time. Have fun with it, don't give out any personal information, and slowly take your story into ridiculous territory until the person on the other end catches on that you are playing them and hangs up on you.
- reza_n 9y ago
  > answering the phone, getting put through to a human being, and wasting their time Not sure if that is the best strategy. I started doing that a while back only to find I started getting even more calls from a lot of different companies. In my case, they were all credit, loan, and debt related offers. I even had one person tell me in a snarky tone that they will "keep me in the system". Now I just hang up if its a robocall (opt out if possible) or if its a live person, bluntly tell them I am not interested and why. I now get less calls overall.
- jonathankoren 9y ago
  The FTC Do Not Call List exists ( donotcall.gov ), and threatens fines against violators. Problems with it (beyond the janky lowest bid government website), is that you have to report the violators phone number, and anymore these are spoofed. Also, it feels like the FTC doesn't do anything. You never hear about enforcement actions. For a while after the DNCL came out, calls stopped, but they've been ticking up recently. I keep getting calls selling me solar panels. When I asked how they got the number, they said, "we're calling every homeowner in California." Well, that's a violation.
- bmurphy1976 9y ago
  You have to be careful what you say: http://www.crimeonline.com/2017/04/04/can-you-hear-me-phone-scam-calls-increasing-in-chicago/ http://www.crimeonline.com/2017/04/04/can-you-hear-me-phone-... And, anecdotally, I live in the Chicago area and have noticed a significant increase in this garbage the last couple of weeks. I once had somebody splice a conversation they surreptitiously recorded with me to sound like I was agreeing to a service I never agreed to. Messing with them can be fun, but it's still risky.
martinald 9y ago
ICO is a joke. £400k fine for 100million calls? That's probably way under what they paid to make the calls in the first place, so can just be considered a cost of business.
noonespecial 9y ago
£400k? That's not a fine. When the fine is that much less than the profits, its not a "fine". Its just a tax. And a light one at that.
godmodus 9y ago
Need to stop fining companies and start suing the individuals. And actually make it hurt. 500k is change. Could even be a "indirect" donation.
_jal 9y ago
I would love to see the FCC begin to pay attention to this garbage in the US. I get about 4x more spam calls than from humans I actually want to hear from on my cell. I no longer pick up any call I don't recognize, which has caused problems. I also am in on-call rotation for my day job, so I can't just turn the ringer off at night when "on". And these assholes call constantly. I'm not at all a violent person, but meeting someone with a financial stake in one of these operations would seriously test me. I find them utterly enraging.
- reza_n 9y ago
  Same, pretty much all phone calls I get these days are spam. And yes, very frustrating to constantly get calls offering small business loans for my non existent company. Can anything be done to combat this?
  - beamatronic 9y ago
    Only communicate inside a walled garden. Forgo public anything. For example, do all your communication in Facebook Messenger. It's not because Facebook Messenger is the best messenger ever, but instead, it is because there are so many hoops for the person to jump through ( for example getting accepted into your social network and meeting all the security requirements that are managed by Facebook for you - SSL, 2FA, etc ) that you end up with 100% signal and no noise.
  - pythonistic 9y ago
    I'm using Google Fi as my voice provider. It's not an awesome solution and requires a very specific phone, but I do get three things that really help with the spam calls: * I can manage a list of spam and blocked callers online in addition to on the phone. This lets me move blocked call management off the phone and onto the carrier. * I never have to answer my phone or listen to my voicemail: the transcripts have gotten to be very good, and appear relatively quickly after a call is received. * Calls are flagged when I receive them, and probable spam calls are marked as such when the phone rings.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
sulam 9y ago
Here's the most important part of the story: "In October, the government announced plans to let the ICO fine company directors as well as their businesses. "Making directors responsible will stop them avoiding fines by putting their company into liquidation," the ICO said." Awesome!
TuringNYC 9y ago
You think this is bad, this is nothing. The worst thing is when one of these call-bots hijacks your phone number as the source/caller ID. Then you get all random people calling you about a missed call. We had a high-value xyz-8888 business number several years back that had this happen. We had to abandon the number. I assume it was someone entering in a random source number that just happened to be ours.
twhb 9y ago
Would somebody please explain the reasoning behind fining companies, not individuals, to change the behavior of individuals? Because it seems to me that if the net result of doing X is a bunch of money and no jail time, the smart move is to continue doing X.

2-bit operation folds, fine unpaid. Director and his missus (1 share each) walk away unscathed.

victorNicollet 9y ago
> In October, the government announced plans to let the ICO fine company directors as well as their businesses.
DanBC 9y ago
Directors are personally liable for ICO fines as a result of PECR infringement. At least, that was the plan, I'm not sure if this was enacted: http://www.wablegal.com/uk-directors-personally-liable-nuisance-calls/ http://www.wablegal.com/uk-directors-personally-liable-nuisa...
- bogle 9y ago
  Nope, not enacted and now kicked into the long grass.
tgb 9y ago
> In October, the government announced plans to let the ICO fine company directors as well as their businesses. "Making directors responsible will stop them avoiding fines by putting their company into liquidation," the ICO said. Can't come soon enough!
digitalronin 9y ago
Not necessarily; > From Spring 2017, firm directors can each be fined up to £500,000 by the Information Commissioner’s Office, if they are found to be in breach of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-clamps-down-on-nuisance-call-crooks https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-clamps-down-on...
_pmf_ 9y ago
The magic of limited liability. It's the codified concept of privatizing profits and socializing losses.
- easytiger 9y ago
  It really is not

Until our government or phone companies fix this problem in the US, I don't see another way to make a difference other than answering the phone, getting put through to a human being, and wasting their time. Have fun with it, don't give out any personal information, and slowly take your story into ridiculous territory until the person on the other end catches on that you are playing them and hangs up on you.

reza_n 9y ago
> answering the phone, getting put through to a human being, and wasting their time Not sure if that is the best strategy. I started doing that a while back only to find I started getting even more calls from a lot of different companies. In my case, they were all credit, loan, and debt related offers. I even had one person tell me in a snarky tone that they will "keep me in the system". Now I just hang up if its a robocall (opt out if possible) or if its a live person, bluntly tell them I am not interested and why. I now get less calls overall.
jonathankoren 9y ago
The FTC Do Not Call List exists ( donotcall.gov ), and threatens fines against violators. Problems with it (beyond the janky lowest bid government website), is that you have to report the violators phone number, and anymore these are spoofed. Also, it feels like the FTC doesn't do anything. You never hear about enforcement actions. For a while after the DNCL came out, calls stopped, but they've been ticking up recently. I keep getting calls selling me solar panels. When I asked how they got the number, they said, "we're calling every homeowner in California." Well, that's a violation.
bmurphy1976 9y ago
You have to be careful what you say: http://www.crimeonline.com/2017/04/04/can-you-hear-me-phone-scam-calls-increasing-in-chicago/ http://www.crimeonline.com/2017/04/04/can-you-hear-me-phone-... And, anecdotally, I live in the Chicago area and have noticed a significant increase in this garbage the last couple of weeks. I once had somebody splice a conversation they surreptitiously recorded with me to sound like I was agreeing to a service I never agreed to. Messing with them can be fun, but it's still risky.

martinald 9y ago

ICO is a joke. £400k fine for 100million calls? That's probably way under what they paid to make the calls in the first place, so can just be considered a cost of business.

noonespecial 9y ago

£400k? That's not a fine. When the fine is that much less than the profits, its not a "fine". Its just a tax. And a light one at that.

godmodus 9y ago

Need to stop fining companies and start suing the individuals. And actually make it hurt. 500k is change. Could even be a "indirect" donation.

_jal 9y ago

I would love to see the FCC begin to pay attention to this garbage in the US. I get about 4x more spam calls than from humans I actually want to hear from on my cell. I no longer pick up any call I don't recognize, which has caused problems. I also am in on-call rotation for my day job, so I can't just turn the ringer off at night when "on". And these assholes call constantly. I'm not at all a violent person, but meeting someone with a financial stake in one of these operations would seriously test me. I find them utterly enraging.

reza_n 9y ago
Same, pretty much all phone calls I get these days are spam. And yes, very frustrating to constantly get calls offering small business loans for my non existent company. Can anything be done to combat this?
- beamatronic 9y ago
  Only communicate inside a walled garden. Forgo public anything. For example, do all your communication in Facebook Messenger. It's not because Facebook Messenger is the best messenger ever, but instead, it is because there are so many hoops for the person to jump through ( for example getting accepted into your social network and meeting all the security requirements that are managed by Facebook for you - SSL, 2FA, etc ) that you end up with 100% signal and no noise.
- pythonistic 9y ago
  I'm using Google Fi as my voice provider. It's not an awesome solution and requires a very specific phone, but I do get three things that really help with the spam calls: * I can manage a list of spam and blocked callers online in addition to on the phone. This lets me move blocked call management off the phone and onto the carrier. * I never have to answer my phone or listen to my voicemail: the transcripts have gotten to be very good, and appear relatively quickly after a call is received. * Calls are flagged when I receive them, and probable spam calls are marked as such when the phone rings.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

sulam 9y ago

Here's the most important part of the story: "In October, the government announced plans to let the ICO fine company directors as well as their businesses. "Making directors responsible will stop them avoiding fines by putting their company into liquidation," the ICO said." Awesome!

TuringNYC 9y ago

You think this is bad, this is nothing. The worst thing is when one of these call-bots hijacks your phone number as the source/caller ID. Then you get all random people calling you about a missed call. We had a high-value xyz-8888 business number several years back that had this happen. We had to abandon the number. I assume it was someone entering in a random source number that just happened to be ours.

twhb 9y ago

Would somebody please explain the reasoning behind fining companies, not individuals, to change the behavior of individuals? Because it seems to me that if the net result of doing X is a bunch of money and no jail time, the smart move is to continue doing X.