Two members of a call-centre group, Swansea-based Save Britain Money have been fined a total of £225,000 by the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) for failing to adequately check that numbers they were dialling were registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS), a legal requirement. The fines follow more than 2,700 complaints about the group to the ICO and TPS in a 20-month period.

Nationwide Energy Services, which sells replacement boilers was fined £125,000, and We Claim, You Gain, which sells PPI claims services was fined £100,000. Both companies have said they will appeal.

The £60 million group, which employs 700 staff to make more than 1.5 million cold and largely unwelcome calls a year is owned by Neville Wilshire, who has had some valuable publicity featuring in a BBC 3 reality TV programme, The Call Centre. However the ICO says the entrainment hides the fact that people have the legal right not to be called, and consumer group Which? describes the calls, which target 70% of the UK population as “a scourge on people’s lives”.