ICO Warns Legal Firms Of Penalties For Unlawful Lead Generation

The Information Commissioner’s Office, the ICO, has said that personal injury firms could face penalties for using leads that have been collected unlawfully or using unlawful lead techniques. They have said that ignorance is no excuse, and that those companies that do continue to flaunt the rules could be hit with substantial penalties, even in cases where they have paid for the lads from a seemingly legitimate source, but it turns out that the lead generation firm had used practices like nuisance calls and texts.

It is common practice for law firms to use lead generation agencies to acquire their leads. This prevents the firm from having to undertake the process themselves, but it leaves them open to whatever strategies those firms use to generate the leads. There has been a clampdown against unlawful and nuisance lead generation tactics. Such tactics include unsolicited nuisance calls and spam texts. Such techniques do still continue, and many people complain that they receive multiple calls and texts in a short space of time.

Consumer group Which? conducted research that found eight in ten people receive at least one unsolicited call in any month. Worse still, the research went on to show that one in ten actually receive 50 or more calls in a one month period. The research also showed which categories of claims were most likely to generate the largest number of nuisance calls. Payment protection claims calls were made to six in ten people while personal injury calls were received by five in ten, or half of those asked. Which? has subsequently lobbied for heftier fines to be levied against those companies that are guilty of the calls and texts.

The Information Commissioner’s Office, the ICO, has said that a record number of complaints against personal injury companies were recorded during the last three months of 2013. A total of 1,645 complaints were made regarding personal injury claim companies and they have said that although they think many solicitors may be unaware they are breaching the laws, they should be prepared to perform due diligence when sourcing leads, because the fines will apply regardless of whether they knew how leads were being sourced.

General PI NewsApr 5th, 20140 comments