The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has fined Intelligent Lending, trading as Ocean Finance, £130,000 for spamming individuals with seven million texts. The texts were sent to offer prospective customers a new credit card. Manchester-based Ocean Finance believed it was complying with the law because the third party firm it obtained names and phone numbers from claimed it had people’s consent to send texts. But an ICO investigation found the consent was insufficient to meet legal requirements. The company sent a total of 7.7 million text messages over six months, with 4.5 million of these successfully transmitted. More than 1,900 complaints were made about the texts to the 7726 spam reporting service and theICO. Off the back of the fine, the ICO urged company bosses to ensure their marketing complies with the law. Steve Eckersley, ICO head of enforcement, said: “Company bosses everywhere should sit up and take note of this fine and check their practices are compliant with the law before embarking on marketing campaigns.....Source: Read more here