Fashion brand Just Hype has picked up a big fine after being accused of sending out more than 1.7 million nuisance text messages.
The £13 million turnover business drew complaints after sending thousands of unsolicited texts to customers last summer offering free face masks.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said it had breached customer privacy rules and fined it £60,000.
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It also criticised it for trying to take advantage of the pandemic.
The brand – which is also marketed as Hype – was established in 2011 and is run by co-directors and shareholders Liam Green, Bav Samani and Vin Patel.
It sells clothes and accessories through its own website and sites such as ASOS, Zalando, and Next’s Label, as well as in stores worldwide.
Mr Samani said the company, based in Blaby, Leicestershire, had held its hands up to the text messaging mistake and staff had now been trained in privacy regulations.
But he said the team resented the accusation that they had taken advantage of the pandemic – with 40,000 people taking them up on the free offer.
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He said: “We made a mistake, and it’s a learning curve for us. It won’t happen again.
“All the staff have been trained in using data and in what to do and what not to do.
“The fine is massive and it’s going to affect us but we are not going to go back and forward with the commissioner over it.
“But we do not agree that we took advantage of the Covid situation. We were providing masks free of charge when people downloaded an app.
“We had managed to secure some masks from our supply chain, and had also given a lot to charity and the NHS.”
In recent years Just Hype, which has 111 staff, has been recognised as one of Britain’s fastest growing private companies in lists such as the Sunday Times Virgin Fast Track 100.
海角视频 law states that a company must have permission to send people direct marketing messages, and the ICO said Just Hype customers were not given a simple way to refuse the use of their details for marketing.
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ICO head of investigations Andy Curry said: ”This company should have known better than to bother its customers with text messages they didn’t want.
“Not only were they breaking the law by sending them without permission, they were also trying to profit from the pandemic by giving away face masks, with the aim of increasing sales.
“We can and will take action where companies deliberately flout the law.”
The ICO has the power to impose penalties of up to £500,000 in relation to companies sending out unsolicited marketing calls, emails or texts.
It said between June, 2019 and June, 2020, more than 1.7 million direct marketing messages were sent on behalf of Just Hype – which subscribers had not provided adequate consent for.
The organisation said Just Hype came to its attention after complaints were made to the 7726 spam text reporting tool last June.
It said that particular message had told people to, “Claim your free face mask now! no purchase required, download app to claim”, followed by a web link and a link to opt out.
After contacting Just Hype, it said the company suspended all text message marketing as a result.
The marketing messages had been sent through a third-party SMS messaging platform provider, with more than 2 million messages in total sent over a 12 month period.
The ICO said: “In respect of the free face mask messages, sent over the four-day period between June 7, 2020 and June 10, 2020, 107,795 messages were sent by Just Hype.
“It stated the data had been sourced from its own website namely from its own customers during the checkout process when purchasing items.
“Just Hype acknowledged that having reviewed the checkout page it could be clearer to customers about how their data would be used and how they could opt out of receiving marketing messages.“
It added: “In its correspondence with the commissioner, Just Hype advised that it did not have any specific training in relation to contact with customers for its staff, but this had been identified as an area for focus.”
The ICO said Just Hype had updated its privacy and communications policies and said part of the problem was caused by an issue it had been unaware of with its SMS platform provider.
It said Just Hype messages had apparently been sent to lists used by other companies rather than just to its own distribution list.
Just Hype said around a quarter of the 107,795 messages sent between June 7 and June 10, last year, were mistakenly sent to incorrect recipients.
The ICO said Just Hype had not deliberately set out to break the rules, but should have been aware of its responsibilities.