Tuition agency fined under DNC rules

Tuition agency fined under DNC rules

A tuition agency and its director have become the first offenders to be penalised under new "Do Not Call" rules which kicked in on Jan 2.

Between Jan 3 and 14, Law Han Wei, 35, a director of Star Zest Home Tuition, and the company sent messages to mobile subscribers to market the services of its tutors.

Law and Star Zest were each fined $39,000 on Wednesday after pleading guilty to 13 of 37 counts of the offence.

Further investigations revealed that between Jan 2 and April 2, the Personal Data Protection Commission received 364 valid complaints about the agency from people who had registered for the Do Not Call Registry, which bans companies from marketing to any number listed on it without first getting consent.

It was set up to let consumers block unsolicited marketing calls, SMS messages and faxes by listing their numbers. More than 600,000 phone numbers are on it.

Anyone convicted under the Personal Data Protection Act can be fined up to $10,000 per charge.


This article was first published on August 28, 2014.
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