I guarantee I will not be buying my next car from Finbarr Galvin Ltd and you probably shouldn’t either if you want your personal data to be respected. I should have known I’d be SMS spammed by Finbarr Galvin Ltd again. They’re a car dealer in the town of Bandon, Co Cork for those who don’t know them. I bought a car off them around seven years ago, which I traded in for another car two years later.
So, I haven’t had any business dealings with them in seven years.
In the time since then I’ve received a couple of advertising text messages, the last being about two years ago when I remember a lengthy phone call with a sales assistant to get them to remove me from their sms list. They didn’t have an “opt out” method that time.
I’ve tried to remove myself from their list now by texting OPTOUT to 50123 as stated in this text message, but haven’t heard back yet. If I was to judge by my previous attempts to unsubscribe, they probably have to manually remove my number using a chisel on stone tablets or something similarly archaic. This is part of the reason I’m making this blog post, as a reminder for the next time I get spammed by them.
I’m also publishing this because Finbarr Galvin Ltd should only send advertising text messages to customers they have had dealings with and received express permission to message them, in the last twelve months. I told them this that time I talked to that sales assistant:
Marketers may send you electronic mail for direct marketing purposes where:
(i) You have given them explicit consent to do so within the last twelve months, or
(ii) they have obtained your personal contact details in the course of a sale to you of a product or service within the last twelve months, they informed you of their identity, the purpose in collecting your contact details, the persons or categories of persons to whom your personal data may be disclosed and any other information which is necessary so that processing may be fair, and the direct marketing they are sending is in respect of their similar* products and services only, and you were given a simple cost-free means of refusing the use of your contact details for direct marketing purposes at the time your details were initially collected, and where you did not initially refuse the use of those details, you are given a similar option at the time of each subsequent communication. (If you fail to unsubscribe using the cost-free means provided to you by the direct marketer, you will be deemed to have remained opted-in to the receipt of such electronic mail for a twelve month period from the date of issue to you of the most recent marketing electronic mail).
They certainly shouldn’t be using my personal details for advertising purposes after seven years. I hope that OPTOUT text to 50123 was “cost-free”.
Bah.