The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) found that the meal delivery company sent 79 million spam emails and a million spam texts to customers without the required permissions.
Read on to find out more about the ICO's investigation and for advice on dealing with spam.
'A clear breach of trust'
The ICO says it has fined HelloFresh £140,000 for a ‘clear breach of trust’.
The data watchdog's investigation found that HelloFresh sent marketing messages based on an opt-in statement which didn't reference that it would contact customers by text.
In addition, customers were not given sufficient information that their details would be used for marketing for up to two years after cancelling subscriptions.
Finally, the ICO says it discovered that HelloFresh continued to contact some customers even after they’d requested for communications to cease.
Thousands of complaints
The ICO’s investigation has been ongoing since March 2022.
In addition to complaints made directly to the ICO, 8,729 complaints were logged by the '7726' service, under which members of the public can flag spam text messages.
Andy Curry of the ICO says: 'Customers weren’t told exactly what they’d be opting into, nor was it clear how to opt out.
'From there, they were hit with a barrage of marketing texts they didn't want or expect, and in some cases, even when they told HelloFresh to stop, the deluge continued.'
The ICO says it has issued more than £2.4 million in fines to companies for nuisance calls, texts and emails since April 2023.
How to report spam texts and emails
How you should deal with unsolicited texts or emails depends on whether the message is spam from a genuine company, or a potential scam message.
Watch our two videos for advice on protecting yourself from dodgy texts and emails.
Spam texts
Spam emails
source https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/hellofresh-fined-for-sending-millions-of-spam-texts-and-emails-asQdu1O7ZFUT