A company that sold call-blocking devices to elderly people has been fined £190,000 after the regulator found it was responsible for the very nuisance calls its products claimed to prevent.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said Elderly Aids Ltd (EAL) made 758,053 unsolicited direct marketing calls between May 2024 and February 2025, all of them to people registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS), the official register for those who have opted out of receiving marketing calls. The regulator announced the penalty alongside an enforcement notice ordering the firm to stop making unlawful calls and to comply with caller identification requirements.
According to the ICO, the company deliberately targeted elderly people to promote its call-blocking devices, claiming it was trying to protect them from nuisance calls. Twenty complaints were made to the ICO and the TPS during the nine month calling campaign.
Aggressive calls to people who had opted out
The complaints revealed that EAL’s callers were aggressive, misleading and often failed to identify themselves. One complainant described the firm “overcharging for call blocking services that they aren’t authorised to sell”, saying their father “was persuaded to sign up to pay £139 upfront and a £6.99 monthly fee”.
Andy Curry, Head of Investigations at the ICO, said: “Not only did this company target vulnerable people who had explicitly asked not to be called, they harassed them to sell call-blocking devices. EAL showed a complete disregard for the law and the people they were hounding. This penalty should serve as a clear warning to any business that thinks the law does not apply to them. We will hold them to account for both exploiting people in this way and trying to avoid accountability.”
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