Easylife fined £1.5 million for 'serious breach' of data protection rules
The catalogue retailer Easylife has been fined a total of £1.48 million for breaking data protection laws and making aggressive, unsolicited marketing calls.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) fined Easylife £1.35 million for using the personal data of 145,000 customers to target them with health-related products without their consent.
The company was fined an additional £130,000 for making well over a million predatory direct marketing calls.
In March, Which? reported on fines for five firms found to have deliberately targeted older, vulnerable people with nuisance calls about white goods insurance.
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Profiling customers without consent
Easylife is a catalogue retailer that sells household and other items under its Health, Motor, Supercard, and Gardening clubs.
The ICO found that when a customer purchased a product from Easylife’s Health Club catalogue, the company would use this data to try to sell them other health products without their consent. For example, if a person bought a jar opener or a dinner tray, it would use that purchase data to assume that person had arthritis and then call them to sell glucosamine joint patches.
Out of 122 products in its Health Club catalogue, 80 items were ‘trigger products’, meaning Easylife would profile the customer to target them with a health-related item. Easylife customers were entirely unaware the company was collecting and using their personal data for that purpose.
John Edwards, UK Information Commissioner, said: ‘Easylife was making assumptions about people’s medical condition based on their purchase history without their knowledge, and then pedalled them a health product – that is not allowed.
'The invisible use of people’s data meant that people could not understand how their data was being used and, ultimately, were not able to exercise their privacy and data protection rights.
'The lack of transparency, combined with the intrusive nature of the profiling, has resulted in a serious breach of people’s information rights.’
Pushy sales tactics and cold calls
In a separate investigation, the ICO found that Easylife also made 1.34 million unsolicited marketing calls to people registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) between 1 August 2019 and 19 August 2020.
Live marketing calls should not be made to anyone who has registered with the TPS, unless they have specifically agreed to receive calls from them.
The ICO received 25 complaints about these calls and said it was clear that ‘people felt threatened and distressed by the company’s aggressive tactics’.
Which? members report nuisance calls from Easylife
Which? has also received dozens of complaints about Easylife, typically related to nuisance phone calls and payments being taken without consent.
One member said Easylife took money from her account despite repeatedly telling them she wasn’t interested. As she'd been a customer on occasions, Easylife had her card details but this did not give them the right to make unsolicited calls trying to push other products at her.
The member said: ‘They were trying to promote what they called an Easylife Supercard which, according to them, would amount to “lots of savings and benefits”. From the outset of the cold call, made very forcefully, I made it abundantly clear I was not interested. When my bank statement came, I found £69.99 had been taken by Easylife.
'After being referred from one department to another I was told I would be reimbursed. It seems that there is a 14-day trial – if you wish to cancel it, it's incumbent on you to contact them – despite my having emphatically told them from the start I didn’t want anything to do with this scheme. I think this is an appalling way of going about things, and to have taken money out of my account without my authority is tantamount to theft.’
Another member told us their mother initially purchased an item from the Easylife website with no issues until they contacted her out of the blue with an offer for an annual membership and a catalogue with more products and vouchers.
He said: 'My mother refused and then sometime later we noticed a charge for £1.99 then £69 for a membership. The company took payment without her consent and as they even sent the catalogue over, they said she would have to send it back and there's a further charge of £10.'
Easylife responds
We asked Easylife if it wished to comment on the ICO fines and reports from Which? members. It told us:
'One fine relates to the company’s failure to screen its customer data against the TPS database between August 2019 and August 2020. Easylife admits that failing and has explained to the ICO how and why it occurred. Since the beginning of 2021, we have screened all customer data in full compliance with the law.
'The other relates to the use of customer purchase history to target customers with new products and services, which we thought might be of interest to them given their previous purchases from us. Easylife has simply done what the ICO has already admitted to us that lots of businesses do day in day out.
'We were simply trying to minimise the number of calls made to customers, but it seems that the ICO would prefer it if businesses like Easylife made more untargeted calls to their customers and not fewer more targeted calls.
'In any event, we stopped the practice complained of by the ICO upon receipt of its complaint, pending clarification of the law in this area. Easylife fundamentally disagrees with the ICO both that it has broken the law and also in relation to the level of fine imposed, which is out of all proportion to the alleged wrong.'
If you believe your personal data has been misused or you receive nuisance texts, calls or emails, report them to the ICO, get in touch via live chat or call the ICO helpline on 0303 123 1113.
