ICO Fines Two UK Home Improvement Firms £370,000 for Spam Calls

The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has fined two home improvement firms a combined £370,000 for hundreds of thousands of unlawful nuisance calls to people who had registered with the Telephone Preference Service. Thermotech Wall and Loft Surveys Ltd (TWLS) took the larger penalty of £240,000, while Jacksons Marketing Ltd (JML) was ordered to pay £130,000, the ICO said.

WhatsApp messages between Bournemouth-based director Thomas Vickrage and an overseas call centre contained the playbook in the regulator’s words: use TPS data, get pinged, then close and repeat.

How the £370,000 Was Split Between the Two Firms

The ICO issued both monetary penalties in a single July announcement that bundled two separate investigations under one headline. Thermotech Wall and Loft Surveys Ltd, registered in London, was fined £240,000; Jacksons Marketing Ltd, registered in Hampshire, was fined £130,000.

The dates and call counts behind those figures come from separate ICO action notices. TWLS instigated 575,000 calls between 1 October 2024 and 31 March 2025, according to the ICO’s ICO enforcement action register. That campaign drew 132 complaints to the TPS and the ICO’s own reporting tools. The April 2025 search warrant on TWLS pulled the WhatsApp trail that tied the two firms together.

JML ran in parallel: 232,776 calls between 29 January 2024 and 12 December 2024, against which 12 complaints were recorded. The two firms were pinned to the same director through the WhatsApp evidence. The regulator lined the penalties up in a single joint announcement to make the connection public.

Avatar Software and the ‘Community Protection’ Pretext

Most of TWLS’s calls were not made by people at all. The firm used Avatar software operated through overseas call centres, in which scripted lines recorded by voice actors were played by call-centre agents to recipients in the UK.

The avatar gave the impression of a live conversation, with callers identifying themselves as being from a ‘community protection project.’ Complainants reported several calls a day, sometimes from numbers that differed only in their last four digits, prompting recipients to block them one at a time. The scripts leaned on two threats: the supposed health danger of loft insulation and the promise of a government grant, neither of which had any basis in fact.

One recipient told the ICO: ‘The calls scare me, I don’t like them. I am a disabled older woman and I do not like these calls.’ Another wrote: ‘This caller is relentless. Calling multiple times a day and changing last four digits every time I block their number.’

Earlier ICO action against two energy firms had already flagged the same Avatar setup for switching pitches. In the TWLS deployment, the same script-based approach was aimed at invented health risks. The complainants in the ICO file described being left scared to answer their own phones. Andy Curry, the ICO’s head of investigations, used the phrase ‘frightened to answer their own phones’ in his accompanying statement.

The WhatsApp Trail That Bound the Two Firms Together

The chat logs are the closest thing to a written manual the ICO has published in a nuisance-calls case. In one exchange logged by the regulator, Vickrage and an overseas call-centre contact discussed the moment to stop using TPS data once complaints piled up. The regulator’s own release describes the messages as evidence of ‘plans to set up a phoenix company to continue operations if complaints were received.’

The contact asked: ‘You mean use TPS data until we get pinged and then close and repeat?’ Vickrage replied: ‘Haha it’s a good way to keep the money rolling for everyone.’ Earlier in the same chain he had written: ‘Yeah but new company no complaints,’ flagging the playbook he intended to follow once the regulator moved. The full WhatsApp exchange is logged in the ICO’s announcement.

That exchange gave the ICO the basis for pursuing the people behind both brands. JML’s fine was issued on 12 March 2026 and TWLS’s on 28 May 2026, with the consolidated press release following in July. The regulator’s own release ties the WhatsApp log directly to ‘plans to set up a phoenix company to continue operations.’

By the ICO’s count:

• 575,000 calls from TWLS across a six-month window
• 232,776 calls from JML across an eleven-month window
• Three WhatsApp messages quoted verbatim in the regulator’s announcement

Jacksons Marketing and the False Government-Grant Pitch

JML ran a separate campaign over an eleven-month stretch that overlapped with, but did not exactly mirror, TWLS’s. Between 29 January 2024 and 12 December 2024, JML made more than 230,000 calls to TPS-registered numbers. Like TWLS, it sold loft insulation, home surveys and government grants, but its scripts leaned on a different pretext: the fiction that the government itself had handed over the caller’s details. The ICO said that claim was false.

One JML complainant quoted by the regulator said the caller ‘said we could get a government grant to insulate our home’ and offered to send a surveyor. Another reported being told that fibreglass insulation had been ‘downgraded’ by the government and now posed a hazard, a claim the ICO also describes as false. JML, which the ICO said had overdue accounts, drew 12 complaints during the period.

What Victims Could Do, and Why the Rules Were Not Enough

Registration with the Telephone Preference Service is free of charge and tells organisations not to call that number for marketing. Once a number has been on the register for at least 28 days, UK rules treat calls to it as direct marketing without consent, and they breach the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) regardless of any verbal permission extracted during the call.

Vickrage’s chats treated the TPS as a fresh lead sheet, using data on registered numbers to drive calls and planning to abandon each shell when complaints piled up. The ICO’s recommended sequence for anyone still receiving similar calls is short: register with the TPS, then report any breach through the ICO’s online reporting tool. Both routes are free, and the ICO’s reporting tool accepts written accounts of how the calls played out. The two firms fined this week were tripped up by exactly that kind of complaint trail.

Enforcement notices sit alongside the fines for both TWLS and JML, ordering each to stop making marketing calls without consent. JML’s penalty landed on 12 March 2026 and TWLS’s on 28 May 2026, with the consolidated press announcement in July pulling both into a single public framing. Both fines appear as dated entries on the ICO’s open enforcement register, sitting above the WhatsApp evidence that produced them.

• Register your landline or mobile number with the TPS, free of charge, at tpsonline.org.uk.
• Report nuisance calls through the ICO’s online reporting tool.
• Refer suspected fraud or scams to Action Fraud or, in Scotland, Police Scotland.
• Refer silent or abandoned calls to Ofcom.
• Refer consumer-business complaints to Trading Standards via Citizens Advice.

The Phoenix-Company Loop in the ICO’s File

The strongest signal in the regulator’s own file is not in the WhatsApp messages; it is in the framing the ICO used to introduce them. Andy Curry, the ICO’s head of investigations, put the spine of that framing in writing alongside the announcement.

These companies targeted some of the most vulnerable in our society. They called older people and those who had clearly asked to be left alone, leaving them frightened to answer their own phones. That is completely unacceptable. We will not hesitate to take action against those who exploit people in this way, and we will follow the evidence wherever it leads; including to those who try to evade accountability by creating new companies when complaints mount up.

Curry’s phrase about ‘those who try to evade accountability by creating new companies when complaints mount up’ directly mirrors Vickrage’s chat-log line: ‘Yeah but new company no complaints.’ The ICO’s release pins the WhatsApp messages to ‘plans to set up a phoenix company to continue operations if complaints were received.’ Vickrage is named in plain text inside that narrative.

Both TWLS and JML carry separate enforcement notices ordering the calls to stop, alongside the monetary penalties. JML’s notice was issued on 12 March 2026, TWLS’s on 28 May 2026. The ICO’s open enforcement register lists each as a dated action. Each notice is also dated to the search-warrant visit that pulled the WhatsApp trail.

When This is Money contacted TWLS for comment, the email address provided by the business bounced. The ICO’s July announcement page carries Curry’s full statement alongside the dates, the call counts, and the WhatsApp log. The next move, in Curry’s words, is to follow the evidence ‘wherever it leads.’