Who is Ewan? | About | Advertise | Contact | Services | Newsletter | Feeds | Shop | All Categories

Posts Tagged ‘phonepayplus’

PhonePayPlus: The dinner lady of the UK mobile industry

Thursday, January 22nd, 2009

PhonePayPlus is the proverbial dinner lady in the mobile industry school playground.

Nominally known as the premium rate industry regulator, they typically hand out fines to companies that have made a huge, huge amount of money from spamming the mystified UK population — and who, have conveniently costed a fine into the profitability matrix.

I describe PhonePayPlus to anyone who enquires as one of runt dinner ladies. The dinner lady that, despite the huge sign saying KEEP OFF THE GRASS outside the Headmaster’s office, will strategically ignore the 14 or 15 ugly oversized teenagers sprawled across it. That’s because, earlier in the term, she once walked over and insisted they get off the grass — to which the teenagers just stared briefly at her and then carried on listening to their headphones.

So the PhonePayPlus dinner lady continues to patrol the school playground and conveniently ignores all the bollocks going on until whilst, now and again, putting some of the teeny kids — the ones who haven’t learnt that disobeying has next to no effect — in detention.

The mobile industry in the UK is completely screwed in the context of premium billing. How is it possible for me to get an unsolicited text like this one…

Fun Facts Alert

… INSTRUCTING ME to reply STOP if I’m not interested?

Where’s the register that allows me to unsubscribe from all unsolicited bollocks like this? And I mean a register that works and is adhered to by anyone sending marketing messages?

Why isn’t there a differentiation made between folk who send you marketing texts and service text messages?

If I’m a hairdresser and I want to text you with an appointment update — that’s entirely non-premium, right? So when I sign up with a mobile aggregator, I should choose the NON PREMIUM option.

If I want to make money from a premium marketing service, shouldn’t I have to sign-up for a different account — that, when I send messages out — runs them through a country-wide ‘unsubscribe and don’t market me’ list of numbers before the promotional messages are even transmitted?

It’ll never happen.

So I’ll just keep getting woken up by stupid texts like that one.

And until the country moves away from the money making CASH COW that is the premium text messaging scam.

And by the way here’s the latest ineffectual news from PhonePayPlus:

- Prior permission: providers offering mobile subscription services charging over £4.50 in any given week or applying pay-per-page charges on the mobile internet must first apply for permission from PhonepayPlus;

- Active confirmation: as part of the prior permission undertaking, any consumer joining a subscription service must first receive a free confirmation text message detailing the cost and conditions of the service. The consumer cannot be charged until they have confirmed their subscription by replying to that text.

Will this change anything? Yeah. The ‘nice’ providers will observe it. But everybody else? Nah.

Watch as the naughty kids on on the grass don’t even bother looking this way.

Those new rules, by the way, are off the back of this:

PhonepayPlus’ review of the premium mobile sector was prompted by a worrying 108% increase in mobile-related complaints received from 2006/7 to 2007/8. This was accompanied by anecdotal evidence of consumers, including young people, being charged several thousand pounds in some cases as a result of bad practice by content and service providers.

Next.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Annoying | Comments

UK ‘Premium Rate’ regulation is failing – Part 1

Saturday, December 13th, 2008

PRSAnthony Carroll, the man from the excellent FreshPlastic blog, has been championing the cause of the consumers against some of the worst abuses of the less scrupulous premium-rate operators for some time now.  We’re delighted to bring you his story…. this is part 1 of a series.

—

Hi, I’m Anthony and I have anger issues. Fortunately they’re focused towards those that operate premium rate SMS services (PRS) and those that regulate that industry. I also set aside a pinch of anger towards mobile operators. Other than that I’m generally a happy bunny. Okay, maybe not happy – but content.

What’s not to like about PRS and PhonepayPlus? Where do I begin? How about the regulator’s ridiculous name? Who thought that was a good idea? How did they come up with that? Was it in-house or did they pay an agency a shedload of cash? Either way, it’s terrible. Do a Family Fortunes’ ‘we asked 100 people’ and I’d put ‘Double Money’ on just a handful of people knowing who they are and what they do (actually I think I’m being generous there).

What’s in a name anyway, as long as they do a good job, right? Alas, they don’t excel there either. At least if my own personal experience and observations are anything to go by…

Until February this year I had no reason to contact PhonepayPlus (the artist formerly known as ICSTIS). But then one day I received a text message from Tracey (if that was her real name, which it wasn’t as Tracey isn’t real). In her text she told me that her friend Katie (again not real) informed her that I was lots of fun and asked whether I’d like to chat. Being single, you would think that’s the kind of text I would want to receive but, of course, neither of these ladies were real.

The tale tell sign that my message from Tracey wasn’t a message from a Tracey (other than a fact that I don’t know any Traceys) was what the rest of the message said: ‘Opt-out send STOP’, ‘£1.50/msg’ and ‘VIP 0871789089’. I thought nothing of it at the time as to me it was just spam. I didn’t like it, but I wasn’t paying for it, right? Wrong!

Fast forward to April and I noticed I had been charged for the message, to the tune of £1.50. Nor was I alone, The Independent ran a piece about Spread Media on the 30th March. My operator, 3, told me that there was nothing they could do, nor did they have any responsibility when it came to the matter. I was told to contact the spammers for a refund. PhonepayPlus’s advice was the same… text back ‘STOP’ and ring the offending company’s 0871 number for a refund.

I decided against ringing as, quite frankly, I didn’t trust them. To get a refund I would have to give them my name and address. Didn’t seem a particularly good idea, not worth it for the £1.50 owed. They were stopped from operating PRSs shortly after, but not for long…

Tags: ,
Posted in Ben Smith, Feature, Mobile Services | Comments

The ever-present arse that PhonePayPlus has to deal with

Thursday, December 11th, 2008

I was pleased to read the other day about a whopping 250 grand fine issued by PhonePayPlus to Starwire Limited whose ‘Unknown’ (“promoted by missed calls”) service made the following breaches according to the regulator:

Fairness (Misleading), Pricing Information, Contact Information, Inappropriate Promotion, Further Information

I see that mBlox were knocked on the head for 35k after their client, Genius Games, attracted complaints for a service that the PhonePayPlus Tribunal doubted could ever be made compliant with their code of practice.

Dear me.

mBlox had another one in the same sitting. Another 75 grand fine from another service that the Tribunal also reckoned wouldn’t ever be compliant with their code.

What is it with this side of the industry?

Here we are, years on from the rubbish times of yesteryear when consumers were routinely pumped for cash by unscrupulous arses who knew exactly what they were doing.

And nothing’s changed.

The screwing about has just evolved. Drop dialing services appear to be a current favourite judging by today’s ‘emergency procedure investigation’ invocation by PhonePayPlus. Four chaps, it seems, have been calling people and leaving them missed calls on both landline and mobile numbers. Missed calls from 070 numbers. That LOOK like mobile numbers to your average Joe. But are actually stupidly expensive ‘personal divert’ numbers.

Depending on the service, consumers have reported hearing a continuing recording of a ringing tone, or have been connected to a voicemail messaging facility, upon callback

Deary me.

This ‘exploit’ is only available because the systems are broken. It’s absolutely ridiculous that in this day and age, you can still get hammered by returning a missed call.

It’s ridiculous that you still have to pay per minute for 8k/sec voice calls.

But I suppose it’s so easy to make a ton of cash in a relatively legal sense (just don’t get caught by PhonePayPlus). Or, if you do get caught, stick the company into liquidation pronto and setup another tomorrow morning.

Meanwhile if you get a missed call from someone you don’t know, think twice about calling back. If they actually need to speak to you, they’ll leave a voicemail or call again.

And if you do phone up, don’t stand there listening to a ringing tone for minutes on end…

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Mobile | Comments

WIN Plc and the 72 £1.50 text message bomb

Thursday, September 4th, 2008

Back in 2006, a MIR reader’s daughter got a text message.

And another. And another. And woosh. Across what appeared to be a few minutes, she was text-bombed.

Whether by mistake or by design, she ended up with a heck of a lot of premium rate texts being delivered to her handset. The reader describes it thus:

The 72 unsolicited reverse SMS texts were sent at two second intervals, my daughter was on a trip in her car, when her phone ‘in box’ filled up, she deleted the total content, when it filled up again in the blink of an eye, she again deleted the whole lot, and to this day, we have no idea what the content actually contained.

WIN (as the aggregator in question providing the connectivity for another company who originated the texts) refunded this amount after the reader complained.

All is well, yes?

Well not quite. The reader is — rightly — appalled by the matter. He, I suspect, is thinking that the mobile industry is a normal industry. It’s regulated after all. Right? So this sort of thing shouldn’t keep happening. Right?

Whilst there’s no current complaint, the reader’s astonishment, shock and bewilderment in dealing with both WIN, Ofcom and PhonePayPlus was one I wanted to highlight.

I don’t think he understands how this sort of thing was allowed to go on. And, in many cases… still does continue, only in different ways.

It’s a sad state of affairs when my response to the reader is thus: I’m pleased you got your money back. Let’s move on.

What else can you say?

It’s a seedy industry. It’s roots are seedy. Only a percentage play fair.

It’s a lot better than it used to be, here in the UK.

But there’s still a huge issue between the aggregator supplying the connectivity — and the client companies they work with abusing the aggregator’s connections, often resulting in fines.

What can you do?

Be responsible.

Yes and no. The aggregator viewpoint is simple: They can’t monitor every message. They can’t check every single new service launched. They don’t have the resources. Or they choose not to have the resources.

It’s cheaper to pay the fines, refund the complaints and skim where possible.

It’s all changing though — as premium text message begins to wane in popularity, we’ll begin to free ourselves collectively from the menace that is the premium rate scammers.

Once you get to the likes of the Apple iTunes App Store, the opportunity for scamming seriously diminishes.

Ah dear.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in SMS | Comments

Watchdog promises to clean up dodgy downloads

Friday, May 2nd, 2008

Apparently, the UK’s premium downloads market is in need of a clean-up. The regulator formerly known as ICSTIS – PhonepayPlus – is launching a probe of mobile premium services including ringtones and games, saying there’s “evidence of significant consumer harm”.

Such evidence includes 4,500 complaints made in the first three months of this year, up 40 percent on last year), and 33 mobile services with total fines in excess of £360,000 in the first three months of the year.
PhonepayPlus will now be targeting unsolicited promotions, especially text messages; Price transparency and the use of words that indicate content is ‘free’ and subscription services like ringtones and the use of the STOP command. The results are out in July – hopefully the threat of coming under the regulator’s microscope will get all the cowboys to smarten up a bit.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Mobile Services | Comments

Powered by Interactive Energy | Sign up to The Application Review newsletter