Two Bury business directors have been banned after more than 15 million calls about claims management services were made.

Adam Crowley, 37, of Grantham Drive, Bury, and Gary Price, 38, of Wentworth Avenue, Heywood, were the directors of Reliance Advisory Limited.

A report by The Insolvency Service found that between January 1 and June 30, 2019, Reliance, based on Wash Lane, failed to ensure it complied with privacy and electronic communications regulations.

The Information Commissioners Office (ICO) said they received 85 complaints from members of the public, who stated they had received unsolicited calls from Reliance for direct marketing purposes when they did not give consent for such calls.

Read more: Bury's Sambro International achieves 'excellent' audit rating

An investigation by the ICO found that during the six-month period in 2019, Reliance used a public telecommunications service for the purpose of making 1,197,390 unsolicited calls for direct marketing purposes to subscribers, for which it did not have the appropriate consent.

An ICO report in 2020 said that Reliance confirmed to the Information Commissioner (IC) on February 4 that year that 15,119,545 calls were made to "new potential customers" and 1,197,390 of them were connected. The calls were "relating to claims management services to subscribers".

Reliance first came to the attention of the IC following the receipt of a number of complaints due to nuisance calls.

The IC sent an initial letter to Reliance on December 10, 2019, setting out concerns with the organisation’s compliance with privacy regulations and requested evidence of consent to contact people.

In its responses to the IC on January 10, 2020, and February 19, 2020, Reliance described itself as a lead generation company for claims management services, an ICO report said.

It confirmed that the data used for its calls was purchased from a third-party data provider.

In response to the IC request for evidence of consent for the complaints received, Reliance said it was unable to provide each "individual specific opt in" due to the length of time since the data was purchased.

Read more: Financial firm worker wins Made In Bury Weekly £2,000 Draw

It was found that in order to sign up to Reliance, users are required to provide their name, address, email address, telephone number, and date of birth.

The website includes a consent statement and tick box, which states: “I consent to allowing xxx to process your registration and to use the data you supply to show you targeted offers and marketing communications from our partners.

"You have read and agree to the terms and conditions and privacy policy. I consent that our partners and their partners may contact me by email, phone, SMS or post.”

Users were unable to proceed to the next step without providing consent at this point and were not able to select which sectors or individual companies they wished to provide consent to, the report said.

A total of 151 partners were listed on the site. 

The report said: "Therefore users would be consenting to receive correspondence from not only the 151 named partners, but their partners as well."

The ICO also said the business "used aggressive tactics when making the calls to subscribers".

One person said: “They have called me approximately five times over the past few weeks, every time they call, I ask them to take me off their system as I am not interested.

“I told them this time I will be making a compliant to the ICO, which they then went on to say that I can’t do that because I hang up on them.

“So this time I left my phone on the side until they hung up."

Read more: Bury LGBT+ young people visit Downing Street to present letters to PM

Another added: “The call concluded with the operator telling me to 'F*** off' after I told her I was not interested.”

Reliance was given a penalty fine of £250,000, which was ordered to be paid by November 27, 2020.

The business entered into liquidation on May 27, 2021, owing £602,870 to creditors which included the £250,000 fine.

Mr Crowley and Mr Price have both been disqualified from being company directors for three years and six months.