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Original poster

Charging for unwanted emails

29 replies

HolidayHattie · 14/01/2025 15:36

Typed a long post and lost it.

In a nutshell, I'm receiving unwanted emails (appointment confirmations, marketing) from a company, presumably because they made a mistake entering their customer's email address.

I notified them and asked to be unsubscribed AND for my email address to be deleted from their system under GDPR. They replied saying they would.

I continued to receive marketing messages and then another appointment confirmation. I sent a complaint to Customer Services asking how I had received further emails if they had deleted it and notifying them that I would charge them £100 for each email subsequently received (except specific replies to the complaint.) Mentioned GDPR and reserved the right to contact Information Commissioner.

Received a response, apologetic, taking it seriously etc. Didn't mention the £100 but neither did they say it was unreasonable and they wouldn't be paying it.

I did get a marketing email the following day but am prepared to let that go as having not had enough time to action it. However, today I've got another.

Assuming they don't pay me, would I have grounds for going to Small Claims Court? It's probably not worth it for just £100 but if I get a couple more emails, it would be.

OP posts:

madamweb · 14/01/2025 17:22

HolidayHattie · 14/01/2025 16:52

Thank you for this - it has alerted me to the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations. However, it appears that you must be able to prove damage.

Show quote history

You'd also need to prove you took all reasonable steps to limit the harm. So, in this instance, just block them. It's that simple.

madamweb · 14/01/2025 17:26

mrsm43s · 14/01/2025 16:56

Actually if you look into that, it's widely understood that the outcome means nothing since there were no damages to be reclaimed. It just so happened that the company involved in that case paid up rather than defending.

"The Regulations required him to show damage – and to sue for compensation for that damage, not for damage caused by other spammers. Media Logistics did not take the opportunity to argue on damages: it could have admitted liability and claimed that damages should be nil. Its obvious argument would be that there is no quantifiable loss and that it should not be held liable for Roberts' spam filtering costs."

"Struan Robertson, editor of OUT-LAW.COM and a technology lawyer with Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind OUT-LAW, said: "Mr Roberts was right to settle after winning his judgment. If a damages hearing took place in court, he may have won some compensation – but there was a real risk that he would receive nothing at all because proving loss caused by spam and attributing that loss to one spammer would be very difficult."
Robertson believes the settlement figure of £300 holds no significance for future court cases "

https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/news/how-to-sue-a-british-spammer

So, this isn't a court case about someone unilaterally deciding to charge £100 per misdirected email. It was covering costs for the spam filter, and the company involved simply agreed to pay it, rather than challenge it. But emails now how have built in spam filtering, and one press of a button from OP would have stopped this happening. She couldn't claim the Spam Filtering Software costs (since that is nil) so what exactly are the quantifiable damages that OP could claim for? And what would be the reason for her not mitigating the issue by simply clicking on block/spam?

Edited

Exactly. This case is clearly distinguishable

Op can block/send to spam filter

They clearly made a genuine error (even if they were slow to sort after notification )

And op doesn't come across well sending deranged emails about charging them £100 for each email received when she could just block them instead.

It would give a judge a good giggle though.

PotaytoPotahhto · 14/01/2025 17:28

We don’t live in the USA where you simply get awarded compensation.

You need to have some sort of damage or loss. What can you show?

devilspawn · 14/01/2025 17:48

You need to report them to the ICO and block them.

It would be easier to earn the money yourself online than the amount of time you've spent on this already. Small claims will already take £30 of it just to submit and tell you you're crazy.

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