Home appliance insurance salesman disqualified for 7 years after making 77,000 unsolicited sales calls to elderly and vulnerable individuals
Tomus Patrick Arif, from Orpington, Southeast London, was the director of two connected companies, Cover Utility Team Limited and Digital Team UK Limited. The companies sold insurance for home appliances.
Cover Utility Team entered into creditors voluntary liquidation in March 2021 and the company’s insolvency triggered an investigation by the Insolvency Service into Tomus Arif’s conduct.
Investigators uncovered that Cover Utility Team had previously been investigated and fined £160,000 by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) after complaints were received that the two companies connected to Tomus Arif had targeted elderly and vulnerable people.
In 6 months, Tomus Arif caused the company to make just under 77,000 unsolicited calls to people who had registered with the Telephone Preference Service to avoid nuisance calls.
This was a breach of the of Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, and Tomus Arif also failed to pay a fee and register with the ICO as a data controller of personal information in a breach of data protection regulations.
Investigators also uncovered customers were often mistreated, complaining they did not take out various home appliance policies but were charged, while some customers did not own the appliance which had allegedly been insured.
On 25 July 2022, the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy accepted a 7-year disqualification undertaking from Tomus Arif after he did not dispute that he allowed Cover Utility Team to breach privacy and electronic communications regulations, as well as data protection regulations.
Effective from 17 August 2022, Tomus Arif is banned from directly, or indirectly, becoming involved in the promotion, formation or management of a company, without the permission of the court.
Elizabeth Pigney, Chief Investigator for the Insolvency Service, said:
An ICO spokesperson said:
Notes to Editors
Tomus Patrick Arif is from Orpington, southeast London, and his date of birth is May 1999.
Cover utility Team Limited (Company number 12133070)
Disqualification undertakings are the administrative equivalent of a disqualification order but do not involve court proceedings. Persons subject to a disqualification order are bound by a range of other restrictions.