Premium rate phone firm fined for spam

The first company in the State to be successfully prosecuted by the Data Protection Commissioner for spam offences has received five fines of €300 – one tenth of the maximum penalty.

The premium rate phone line game company, 4’s a Fortune, was prosecuted for making unsolicited calls to the mobile phones of five people. The owner of the company Tom Higgins, who also runs Irish Psychics Live and Weathercall, pleaded guilty to the offence.

Staff of 4’s a Fortune had made unsolicited calls to mobile phones from landlines but hung up before the calls were answered, leaving a "missed call" notification on the phone.

The unwitting recipients then rang the missed number and were directed to call a premium rate line which related to a quiz game.

Counsel for Mr Higgins, Andrew Turner, told the Dublin District Court his client had stopped the game immediately after he was asked by the Data Protection Commissioner and had put a system in place to ensure the problem did not recur.

Sean Sweeney, an authorised officer with the Data Protection Commissioner, told the court the five individuals involved complained to his office and the company co-operated with the investigation. The service was legal and could be advertised in newspapers or magazines, but promotions through unsolicited text messages contravened data protection regulations.

The offence was a "serious enough matter" Judge Anne Watkin said. Although the five victims had only lost a small amount of money, they had not been recompensed, she said.

However, she noted that Mr Higgins had pleaded guilty and said the particular case would have been "difficult enough to prosecute". The maximum fine for each offence was €3,000.

Judge Watkin imposed fines of €300 relating to each victim, totalling €1,500.

Mr Higgins was also ordered to pay costs of €1,000.

Speaking outside the court Mr Higgins said his company had "made a mistake" in making the calls but it had happened "by accident". He had believed his company was making the calls legitimately because of a "technical misunderstanding between the data protection office and ourselves".