Carl Tingley

Introduction

Carl Kenneth Tingley, aged 39 and of Dunstable, was the sole director of Home2Sense Limited, a Lampeter-based home improvements firm set up in 2019. Between June 2020 and March 2021 the company made 675,478 calls to numbers listed on the Telephone Preference Service — numbers belonging to people who had blocked cold callers — as part of a campaign to sell loft insulation, with staff using false names or failing to identify where they were actually calling from. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) fined the company £200,000 in 2022; the fine was never paid, and Home2Sense went into compulsory liquidation. Following an investigation by the Insolvency Service, the High Court banned Tingley from being a director for eight years.

Background Information

Home2Sense Limited (company number 12219714) was set up in 2019 and traded as a home improvements business operating from Lampeter, selling loft insulation through outbound calling. The calls between June 2020 and March 2021 went to numbers listed on the Telephone Preference Service, the register of people who had blocked nuisance callers — more than 600,000 of them by the government’s own headline count. The Information Commissioner’s Office imposed a £200,000 fine on the company in 2022 for the calls, but it was never paid. That same year the company entered compulsory liquidation with liabilities of £200,000, and the Insolvency Service opened an investigation into the conduct of its sole director.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Register finding: disqualified for eight years. The Insolvency Service found the company ran an extensive cold calling campaign against blocked numbers using a list bought from an unknown source; Tingley claimed in interview he did not know his company should not call the blocked numbers.

The record behind the ban is the calling campaign itself. Home2Sense Limited made 675,478 calls to Telephone Preference Service numbers between June 2020 and March 2021, trying to sell loft insulation, with staff using false names or failing to identify where they were actually calling from. The company initially claimed the number of inappropriate calls it made was ‘relatively low’ and had either been made by staff who were training or who had since been dismissed. Investigations by the Insolvency Service showed the company was in fact using a list of numbers which Tingley had bought from a man known only as ‘Chris’ for £500. In interviews with Insolvency Service investigators, Tingley claimed he did not know his company should not call the blocked numbers and said he thought the list he bought from ‘Chris’ was ‘good’. When the case was heard at the High Court in London, the judge agreed to ban Tingley for eight years, saying the way the company had been run was ’lamentable’.

Public Reaction and Consequences

Neil North, Chief Investigator at the Insolvency Service, said Tingley “failed to ensure that Home2Sense complied with regulations to protect members of the public from nuisance calls”. As a result of “deliberately undertaking such an extensive cold calling campaign”, he said, the company “received a large fine which went unpaid and led to the failure of Home2Sense”. Tingley’s actions, North said, “caused distress to members of the public and ultimately caused his company to fail as a result”, so “it is right that he should be banned from controlling any more companies for the next eight years”.

Andy Curry, Head of Investigations at the ICO, said: “We welcome the decision to disqualify Carl Tingley as a company director.” He said Home2Sense made hundreds of thousands of nuisance marketing calls to “people who had specifically registered to avoid them, using a list of numbers bought from an unknown source with no regard for whether this was lawful”. Curry noted the ICO’s Financial Investigation Unit works with the Insolvency Service “to bring companies and directors to account”, particularly where fines for unlawful nuisance marketing go unpaid, and that disrupting the activities of directors such as Tingley helps ensure “they can’t easily resurface under a different name and continue to cause further harm to people”.

The consequences compounded: a £200,000 regulator fine left unpaid, a compulsory liquidation with £200,000 in liabilities, and an eight-year directorship ban for the man who ran the company alone.

Current Status

Tingley’s eight-year ban began on 15 September 2026. He is disqualified from being a director and, in the Insolvency Service’s framing, from controlling any more companies for that period. Home2Sense Limited remains in compulsory liquidation with liabilities of £200,000, and the £200,000 ICO fine at the centre of the case was never paid. The disqualification was imposed by the High Court in London after the judge characterised the way the company had been run as ’lamentable’, closing a record that began with the firm’s setup in 2019 and ended in the 2022 liquidation.

Impact on Their Career/Life

The ban removes Tingley from company control at 39, for the eight years the court set as the price of the campaign his firm ran. His stated defence — that he did not know his company should not call numbers on the Telephone Preference Service and that he thought the £500 list bought from a man known only as ‘Chris’ was ‘good’ — did not prevail against the investigators’ account. The Insolvency Service drew a straight line from the cold calling to the collapse: the extensive campaign drew a large fine which went unpaid and “led to the failure of Home2Sense”. For the regulator, the point of the disqualification is preventive — that a director sanctioned over unlawful nuisance marketing should not “easily resurface under a different name and continue to cause further harm to people”.

Sources

• GOV.UK, “Boss of home improvements firm which made thousands of cold calls banned from being a director” — source