By 24 August 2009, PhonepayPlus had received 22 complaints from members of the public in relation to a subscription ‘survey’ service operating on shortcodes 61400, 61401 and 61402 that offered users the chance of winning a prize in return for taking part in various surveys. PhonepayPlus noted that 16 complainants stated that they had first been made aware of the existence of this service when they received unsolicited text messages, in some cases resulting in a cost to the complainants of £4.50 per week. Some complainants alleged that pricing/subscription information was missing or insufficiently prominent in promotional material. Furthermore, one complainant alleged that the ‘STOP’ command had not worked.
PhonepayPlus noted that, by 5 October 2009, the number of complaints had increased to 51. Of the additional complaints, 23 stated that the messages received were of an unsolicited nature and four alleged that pricing and/orsubscription information was missing or insufficient.
Following further investigation PhonepayPlus raised the following potential breaches under the Code:
- Paragraph 5.4.1a – Fairness (Misleading)
- Paragraph 5.7.2 – Pricing (Prominence)
- Paragraph 7.12.4a-f – Subscription initiation message
- Paragraph 7.12.5 – Subscription reminders
The Tribunal upheld all of the above breaches. The revenue generated by the service fell within Band 2 (£250,000-£500,000).The Tribunal considered the case to be serious, issued a Formal Reprimand and ordered the Information Provider to remedy the breaches in relation to this service. The Tribunal imposed a fine of £80,000. The Tribunal also ordered that claims for refunds are to be paid by the Information Provider for the full amount spent by users, except where there is good cause to believe that such claims are not valid.
Information Provider – Predicto Mobile LLC, New York, USA
Service Provider – MX Telecom, London
Service Name – uk.predicto.com – Subscription/survey voting
Breaches upheld against – Predicto Mobile LLC, New York, USA
For more information visit – http://www.phonepayplus.org.uk/