A DARWEN boss has urged other businesses to ignore letters asking them to pay over the odds to register with the Data Protection Register.

John Lawson, of Embroidery and Screenprint Services Ltd in Hannah Street, recently received such a letter asking him to pay £135 to a company in Rochdale to be registered. Luckily he had received a similar letter at one of his other businesses and so was aware of it.

But he now wants to make sure other unsuspecting businesses do not fall foul of the ploy which charges £100 more than is necessary.

The letter purports to be from the Data Protection Agency and offers to register the new company with the agency.

Mr Lawson said: "There is a Data Protection notice and also a very convincing application booklet included in the envelope.

"It looks very official but although there is an address for the company doing this, there is no telephone number to contact them.

"The letter was addressed to 'Embroidered Print' but when we took over we changed the company name to Embroidery and Screenprint Services Ltd so it would appear they get the names out of telephone directories.

"They are charging £135 for them to register on your behalf but the actual cost for a company to register themselves is only £35."

Chris Allen, head of trading standards at Blackburn with Darwen Council, said: "My initial response to this is don't send any money off because you don't have to.

"If you have a requirement to register, you can easily do that direct with the Data Protection Register at a fraction of the price.

"Not all companies even have to register, so people should check first and they can do this on the data protection website. There is no need to register through these companies who write to them direct.

"It will cost them more and in some instances that we have been informed about, these companies have not actually forwarded the details on to the Data Protection Register but have pocketed the money."

Details of whether or not businesses are required to register under the Data Protection Act 1998 are available on the Information Commissioner's website at www.dpr.gov.uk or by telephone on 01625 545740.