A man who sent nearly one million spam text messages, targeting people facing financial hardship, has been fined £200,000.

The messages sent by Bharat Chand, from Carmarthenshire, sparked more than 19,000 complaints, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said.

Chand used a Sim farm, a device which holds multiple Sim cards enabling hundreds of texts to be sent in quick succession, to spam the public about debt and green energy solutions.

“These text messages not only caused a nuisance to many thousands of recipients, but were clearly targeted at people who are at greater risk of harm; such as those facing financial hardship,” said Andy Curry from ICO.

“Chand showed blatant disregard of the law and attempted to mislead the ICO during our investigation,” said Mr Curry, the ICO’s head of investigations.

He said they had taken action “to protect the public from the stress and misery these messages can cause”.

By law, organisations could only send marketing text messages to individuals if they had agreed to receive them, except where there was a clearly defined customer relationship, the ICO said.

The ICO concluded that between 3 December 2023 and 3 July 2024, Chand knowingly and deliberately transmitted or instigated the transmission of 966,449 text messages without valid consent, breaking direct marketing rules.

Mr Curry urged anyone who receives spam texts to report them to the ICO, or forward them to 7726, so they could investigate and “take robust action against offenders”.

Chand has also been issued with an enforcement notice ordering him to stop sending marketing messages without the appropriate consent.

He has appealed against the ICO’s decision.

Chand came to the ICO’s attention through several previous investigations, including one into Daniel George Bentley, who was sending texts on behalf of Chand and provided advice about using a Sim farm.

The ICO’s investigation also found Chand used evasion tactics, such as giving false company names in follow-up calls.

Complainants said the messages did not contain a website address, or any information as to the identity of the sender, but invited recipients to ‘reply YES’ to find out more.

One of the messages sent read: “Finding it hard to pay your Debts/Bills see if you can apply to write them off and freeze interest/charges reply YES.”

Several recipients replied ‘yes’ to the messages in an attempt to identify the sender and the source of their data.

They were then called by a company calling themselves The Debt Relief Team, which they reported to the ICO or the Telephone Preference Service.

On 11 June 2024, the ICO carried out a search warrant on Chand’s then home address in Burry Port, where he denied any involvement in the marketing of green energy schemes, despite a call script being on open display.

Evidence also included WhatsApp messages discussing excuses to provide to another related ICO investigation.

In one conversation, Chand appeared to encourage another person to lie in response to the ICO’s investigation letter.

The message said: “Ok pal, say you had an employee who was sourcing leads from an offshore centre without you knowing to get more commission but you sacked him when you found out.”