The Information Commissioner’s Office (IC0), a United Kingdom regulatory agency, has imposed a six-year ban on Aaron Frederick Stalberg, a director of a market research and polling company that made hundreds of thousands of unregulated marketing calls every day.
Find out more about reason for the ban in this report from MrWeb:
Stalberg, 27 and from Exmouth, is described as the sole director of the (The Lead Experts Inc.), which came to the ICO’s notice when consumers complained of receiving automated calls between February 2015 and September 2016. Between 4th and 5th May 2016 alone, the ICO established that the company made more than 115,000 automated marketing calls to members of the public, breaching regulations on privacy and electronic communications. Calls did not include company details and were routed via Buenos Aires in an apparent effort to make it difficult to trace.
The company initially denied it had ever used automated dialling and said it had purchased just a small batch of ‘test leads’, of which a limited number were dialled. Follow-up revealed this to be incorrect and the firm gave no response to further enquiries, on which the ICO levied a £70,000 fine in October last year. The Lead Experts failed to lodge an appeal or pay the debt, and the firm was then referred to the Insolvency Service for the disqualification. Stalberg is banned for 6 years from directly or indirectly becoming involved, without the permission of the court, in the promotion, formation or management of a company.
Andy Curry, ICO Investigations Group Manager, said: ‘By working closely with The Insolvency Service we have been successful in stopping the unscrupulous activities of company directors like Aaron Stalberg who cause upset and distress to millions of people who are on the receiving end of this kind of illegal marketing activity. Our powers to protect the public from companies like theirs making nuisance calls and sending spam texts, have recently been made stronger than ever as we can now make directors and managers of the companies responsible personally liable for fines of up to £500,000. This will help stop them closing down one rogue company and setting up in business again’.
