Dublin property management firm fined €1,000 over spam text

A Dublin property management firm has been fined €1,000 for sending an unsolicited marketing text message offering a free cleaning service.

MTS Property Management Ltd based at Orwell Road, Rathgar, Dublin 6 pleaded guilty to breaking communication regulations following a prosecution by the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner.

Assistant Data Protection Commissioner Tony Delaney told Judge John O'Neill at Dublin District Court the woman had some brief dealings with the company five years previously.

The company did not have consent to contact the woman for marketing purposes when they sent her the message: “to all valued landlords, Easter special, free property cleaning”. It had used a third party service provider to send out bulk text messages.

The messages did not have an “opt out” function either, Judge O’Neill heard. Mr Delaney said that during the investigation, “we had to do a lot of digging behind the scenes”.

Vodafone was contacted and confirmed MTS Property Management Ltd was associated with the message sender.

The court heard that after the woman’s number had been kept on a database after she had made some enquiries five years beforehand.

The company had been issued with warnings by the the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner in 2010 but it had no recorded convictions.

Judge O’Neill was told the company was apologetic and now has an opt out function and this leads to automatic deletion of personal details from their data base.

Judge O’Neill said the company had ignored the concerns of the Data Protection Commissioner.