Unsolicited telesales call costs waste disposal firm €1,000

Waste firm Greyhound Household has been ordered to pay €1,000 to charity for making an unsolicited marketing call to a former customer

The company, which is based at Crag Avenue, Clondalkin Industrial Estate, Dublin, 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 that a Greyhound Household telesales rep had phoned the former customer and enquired if he had moved to another service provider as part of a “sales pitch”.

Previously the company had given the former customer an under-taking that they had deleted his personal data, he said.

A decision was made to prosecute because Greyhound Household had received two data protection warnings over incidents in April 2014.

Mr Delaney agreed the company had provided confirmation they had deleted the man’s details and it has no previous convictions for data protection offences. Judge O’Neill noted the company has paid legal costs and was told that the marketing call was a result of human error.

Telesales staff have since been retrained in relation to data protection issues, he was also told.

Judge O’Neill said he will apply the Probation Act, sparing the company a conviction, if it pays €1,000 to suicide prevention charity Pieta House. The case was adjourned for four weeks.

After the hearing, the company released a statement saying it has “invested heavily in upgrading IT systems, protocols and staff training to minimise the chances of such an occurrence happening again”.