Vanquis Bank fined £75,000 for spam messages
Vanquis Bank, a subsidiary of Provident Financial, has been fined £75,000 by the Information Commissioner’s Office for sending illegal marketing texts and emails.
Financial Services
14,073.03
15:39 26/04/24
FTSE 250
19,820.29
15:40 26/04/24
FTSE 350
4,469.44
15:40 26/04/24
FTSE All-Share
4,422.82
15:40 26/04/24
Vanquis Banking Group 20
47.55p
15:40 26/04/24
The ICO said the Bradford-based bank instigated a campaign to send 870,849 spam text messages and 620,000 spam emails to promote its credit cards. Both the emails and texts broke the law because the recipients had not consented to being sent such messages.
ICO head of enforcement Steve Eckersley said: “There are rules in place to protect people from the irritation, and in some cases anxiety and distress, spam texts and emails cause.
“People need to be properly informed about what they are consenting to. Telling them their details could be passed to ‘similar organisations’ or ‘selected third parties’ cannot be relied upon as specific consent.”
Vanquis Bank obtained the marketing lists used to send the messages from other organisations. It relied on indirect consent rather than checking itself that the correct level of consent had been obtained. This included non-specific, general wording, such as ‘trusted parties’ and ‘carefully selected third parties’.
The ICO has also issued a legal notice ordering Vanquis to ensure its practices comply with the law.