The company made millions of unsolicited cold-calls, with thousands of people complaining to the Information Commissioner’s Office
The director of a company which made millions of cold-calls has been banned from running a business for eight years.
Duncan Paul, 51, of Glenorchard Road, Balmore, Glasgow, was the director of CRDNN Limited, which rang homes and businesses with unsolicited sales calls in 2018.
Many of the calls were about window scrappage, debt management, window, conservatory and boiler sales while others falsely claimed to be working with Scottish and UK government energy saving schemes.
In one case, calls made to a Network Rail control centre near Fort William clogged up the line, creating potential safety problems.
The firm, based in Clydebank, Dunbartonshire, was fined the maximum £500,000 by the Information Commissioner’s Office in 2020 but went into liquidation without paying the fine.
Paul’s co-director Stephen Foote, 44, was also banned as a director for eight years in January 2023.
Mike Smith, Chief Investigator at the Insolvency Service, said:
More than 63 million automated calls CRDNN made from June to the start of October 2018 connected.
The Information Commissioner’s Office received almost 3,000 complaints from people during that period via its online reporting tool.
A further 411 complaints were received via the online reporting tool of the Telephone Preference Service.
CRDNN provided no evidence that recipients had given their consent to receive the calls.
Trevor Callaghan, the ICO’s Director of Enforcement and Investigations, said:
CRDNN was fined £500,000 for contravening regulation 19 and 24 of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 relating to the use of automated calling systems.
The company went into liquidation in January 2021 with the fine unpaid.
The Secretary of State for Business and Trade accepted a disqualification undertaking from Paul, and his ban started on Thursday 2 May.
Foote, of Meadow Rise, Newton Mearns, Glasgow, signed a disqualification undertaking which began in January 2023.
The undertakings prevent the two from being involved in the promotion, formation or management of a company, without the permission of the court.
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