Cellfish Media Sued Over Billing Practices

[El Gringo]

Whats the matter El Gringo - Dont you like being challenged? Do the good people on here a favour and take some maths lessons.

Originally Posted by numberspy

Yes but I prefer to be challenged with verifiable facts not mere opinions. Lets challenge........

I am sure there are many good quality businesses out there and again I am certain most of them are just as frustrated and exasperated by the actions of those that bring their businesses into disrepute.

Originally Posted by numberspy

Well it should be relatively simple for you to give one or three examples.

However I do know what I am talking about here and my main rant yesterday was borne out of frustration and exasperation that many posts here seem to tarnish every company in the PRS sector as being bad and deliberately out to deceive consumers.

Originally Posted by numberspy

Assuming many in your 'maths' sense means a lot it should be easy for you to link to many.

So don't be fooled

Originally Posted by numberspy

we aint

[silentgenius]

I'm sorry - this will be going off topic, but I am not happy with the level of aggression being shown towards numberspy. I have written a couple of "positive" comments about the industry in the past, and been shot down.

The issues being highlighted now are mainly mobile related - and there are loads of problems - perpetrated by mobile aggregators who have failed to act properly.

There are countless "old school" type prs that plug away, with no consumer complaints - horoscopes, weather forecasts, crossword results etc etc.

You cannot tar them all with the same brush!

[numberspy]

Yes but I prefer to be challenged with verifiable facts not mere opinions. Lets challenge........

Well it should be relatively simple for you to give one or three examples.

Assuming many in your 'maths' sense means a lot it should be easy for you to link to many.

we aint

Originally Posted by El Gringo

Well it would appear that any company named in a breach is corrupt and wilfully deceiving consumers - It doesnt mean that at all. As I mentioned before the Code is not fit for purpose as it targets the technology providers and not the promoters - the promoters are responsible for the promotion, which is something that I think some on this forum struggle to grasp. Creating new technology to prevent these promotions will NOT work.

Every company has been named or caught up in PPP's breaches at some point in their life but it doesnt make them corrupt or bad. Opera Telecom used to have a bad reputation but they havent been fined for over 2 years (now Oxygen 8 Communications) - They are a good company. Same with BT Agile Media - a decent service provider. Kingston Communications havent had many breaches and neither has Cable and Wireless, Thus or Your Communications (now part of the same C and W Group). So I have named more than 3. I hope this is not the part where you pull out some script from over 2 years ago and think that its justifiable and still applies because if you do, then it highlights what I initially thought and that is your mind is set and you wont be convinced and its all a big conspiracy theory. I hope you prove me wrong here.

I dont intend to link anything - Your posts are here and you know where they are better than I, but you surely are not denying that many of the posts on this forum tarnish a company as being bad, corrupt etc.

I think what it boils down to is that you are fairly set in your ways, you disbelieve everything and love a good conspiracy theory and if thats it then thats great but it sure aint the real world.

Levels of complaints appear high but only because of the way PPP account for a complaint - As I mentioned before you only have to phone up and ask the time and they will treat that as a complaint.

The nightmare scenario would be to regulate the PRS industry to death - Why is that so bad? Because then we would lose control - Everything would move out of PPP's clutches and consumers would be far worse harmed I would think than they are now.

If I may comment on Mikes earlier post, Mike its a real shame you brought up diallers - They were really bad news for Consumers and Industry alike but that was something that happened 5 years ago and is now dealt with (they are dead!) but let me enlighten you on something. In 1999 when Diallers were in their embryonic development, a very well known person within the PRS industry was so alarmed about the potential harm this technology could cause that he made a presentation to the ICSTIS board and was dismissed out of hand as being unlikely to ever happen and scare mongering. The rest as they say is history, but that is a perfectly good case in point of industry trying to avoid something nasty happening and asking the regulator to do something and be pro-active but was ignored and dismissed. I am afraid its always going to be that way when the good people of ICSTIS/PPP really dont have a clue.

Evidence based does not mean if its modest harm we should do nothing, but on the flip side it doesnt mean we abolish a certain piece of technology because of one consumer complaint.

I hope the above helps to explain and clarify my point of view - I am just trying to add some balance to the thrust of the arguments on this board. You should try and believe me when I say I am objective and want to see good consumer protection but also a growing industry and an effective regulator - Not a one sided dictatorial mechanism that punishes those that are merely the smallest links in a chain of service provision.

[mike99]

I think you'll find with Opera/Oxygen8 that they simply moved many of their "operations" overseas.

The other firms you've mentioned would seem to be network providers not service providers/aggregators.

And I make no apologies for bringing up diallers (which continued to cause problems in the UK into 2006) and which were probably defeated more by the adoption of ADSL rather than anything ICTIS did. Many of the same people who ripped us off with diallers are still in PRS and many of the same people who failed to regulate diallers are still in regulation. No lessons whatsoever have been learned from this episode and no one has ever been held to account either for the scams or the failure to regulate them.

And again, regardless of the absolute numbers of complaints ......... if I discover that a firm has (say) illegally obtained lists of phone numbers and sent out bulk reverse charge SMS to those numbers or that a firm has a website advertising "free" ringtones to kids and fails to mention that each "free" ringtone will cost £9 per week in perpetuity, what am I supposed to conclude about such people? Such behaviour is theft and fraud. If people are prepared to do these things, they will be prepared to do other things. Why should I ever trust such people with my phone number or my bank account details - which I'll have to if I want to use payforit or similar technology?

[El Gringo]

I dont intend to link anything - Your posts are here and you know where they are better than I, but you surely are not denying that many of the posts on this forum tarnish a company as being bad, corrupt etc.

I think what it boils down to is that you are fairly set in your ways, you disbelieve everything and love a good conspiracy theory and if thats it then thats great but it sure aint the real world.

Originally Posted by numberspy

I can only assume you haven't read the posts. If you use Oxygen8 has an example you will see that majority of my posts relate to news articles, complaints and Regulatory actions from around the world.

Are you really trying to claim that these articles form some kind of conspiracy theory?

[numberspy]

I think you'll find with Opera/Oxygen8 that they simply moved many of their "operations" overseas.

Originally Posted by mike99

Not true - They still have overseas offices but their UK business is from what I have been able to ascertain from those in the know, flourishing!

[mike99]

I was speaking euphemistically. They do have flourishing legitimate operations in the UK. They also have a number of (less legitimate) operations in Australia and the Caribbean (to mention two places) which have flourished since they began keeping their nose clean here in the UK a couple of years ago.

[El Gringo]

http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=15773879

Oxygen8 currently operates in the UK, Ireland, Australia, USA, SouthAfrica, East Africa including Tanzania, and the Caribbean.

here they are flourishing! in Ireland
http://www.rte.ie/podcasts/2009/pc/p...s-liveline.mp3

i wonder if they're still flourishing with Scott Richter/Ringaza in the US or Telstra in Australia

[Hamlet]

Mike its a real shame you brought up diallers - They were really bad news for Consumers and Industry alike but that was something that happened 5 years ago and is now dealt with (they are dead!) but let me enlighten you on something. In 1999 when Diallers were in their embryonic development, a very well known person within the PRS industry [would you please PM me who that was? D.K.???] was so alarmed about the potential harm this technology could cause that he made a presentation to the ICSTIS board [is this piece still available?] and was dismissed out of hand as being unlikely to ever happen and scare mongering. The rest as they say is history, but that is a perfectly good case in point of industry trying to avoid something nasty happening and asking the regulator to do something and be pro-active but was ignored and dismissed. [With all respect: This is a historical misrepresentation in my eyes.] I am afraid its always going to be that way when the good people of ICSTIS/PPP really dont have a clue.

Originally Posted by numberspy

Diallers have not been in an "embryonic development" in 1999. At that time everything was clear... You had the big Telcos like C&W having contracts with the porn merchants and you had the dialler companies that gave the "loaded gun" to some crooks...

Look at the first international case of dialler fraud - it happened in the USA (mainly) in 1996:

http://www.ftc.gov/os/1997/11/Bylnadmfcmp.htm

(...)From at least December 1996 through January 1997, the Respondents (...) promoted... sites... (and) ... represented, expressly or by implication, that consumers could view "adult" images for free at sites on the Internet. (...)
instructed consumers that to view the "adult" images offered, the consumer had to first "download a special image viewer." This "image viewer" was a software program, which was identified as "david.exe," or "david7.exe," or other similar names.

8. Contrary to the clear implication of the term "image viewer" that Respondents Tan and NiteLine used on their web sites to describe this software program, the "david.exe" (or similarly named software) was not merely a means for reading computer data and converting such data into visual images. Instead, this software, if downloaded, installed, and activated, would, without any explanations or adequate disclosures: (a) automatically terminate the consumer's computer modem connection to the consumer's local Internet service provider while maintaining the appearance that the computer modem remained connected to such local Internet service provider; (b) automatically direct the consumer's computer modem to dial an international telephone number to re-connect to the Internet; (c) maintain the international long distance telephone connection thus established unless and until the consumer turned off the power switch to his computer or modem, or took other unusual action to terminate the telephone connection; and (d) caused the consumer to incur international long distance telephone charges on his telephone bill at rates in excess of $2.00 per minute for as long as the international long distance telephone connection was maintained. One of the techniques that this software employed to maintain the appearance that the computer modem remained connected to the consumer's local Internet service provider was to automatically turn off the speaker on the consumer's modem before dialing, thus preventing the consumer from hearing the sound of the international number being automatically dialed.

The whole thing technically was managed by Beylen Telecom Limited - a company run by the same guys that have been involved in the OPTUS/C&W/Gilsan case in Australia. (Peter Knobel, phone home)

So the same people involved in the first big case of dialler fraud ever seen have been involved in the contracts between Cable & Wireless and the porn merchants in 1998ff.
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/n...2004/1077.html

The potential of abuse and the fact that the (telecom) industry is involved have been clear before diallers hit Europe. Diallers did hit Europe because the US market as the biggest market worldwide was broken, because the FTC did (widely) resist the ongoing attacks of the lobby (see here for a more detailed explanation --> Kaplan-Ellyatt).

When the big US players started to go for Europe the problems in Europe got bigger and bigger. The politicians did know nothing - but the Lobby was prepared to fill the gaps of knowledge with their diabolic suggestions based on a distorted truth...

The fact that warning voices have been ignored (as you describe it) perfectly fits into what I'm trying to explain.

And therefore it is perfectly clear to me that you have to talk about the past to understand the presence - and to try to avoid misdevelopments in the future.

The point that ICSTIS/PPP should be thrown into the dustbin (or even better "taken out back and horse whipped because they're full of crap") is one of the necessities I see, a strong voice for consumer interests is another one, the "re-criminilization" of fraud should also be mentioned. And not to forget checking the weighting between "making biz possible" and "keeping consumers safe".

---

So we had 1996 and 1999 - but you have also take into account the "2004 dialler problem"
In 2004/2005 NOC tried to "assist" ICSTIS in the fight against rogue diallers ("Dialler Action Group"). Mr Ellyatt was on the stage again in the drama called "Oh these rotten apples that damage our reputation - we would do anything we can to stop them". See this incredible statement). As if trojans and malware have not been parts of the equipment of well known industry heroes in 2002ff...

1. The vast majority of diallers are legitimate and popular services
2. The PRS and dialler business in the UK is valued at 1bn per annum and is a significant employer
3. Banning or heavy handed regulation will push dialler services offshore where they will be outside UK regulatory jurisdiction
4. NOC members have instigated a series of industry initiatives to support ICSTIS in a co-regulatory manner, but suspect that ICSTIS find it difficult to react with sufficient speed and technical appreciation to engage with this highly sophisticated market
5. We need better enforcement of existing regulatory controls
6. Industry co-operation can prevent consumer harm without the need to remove consumer choice

Bullshit. IARN blueprint bullshit. Lobby bullshit.

1996, 1999, 2005, 2009 - nothing really changed. Same actors, same story. I don't think that givingthe power to write the Code from ICSTIS to OFCOM alone would really help.

[mike99]

@Hamlet

Thanks for digging up the dialler history.

I note that we still do not have the name of a single honest service provider / aggregator.

Perhaps we could offer a prize for someone who comes up with one. A free ringtone perhaps?

[mike99]

I'm sorry - this will be going off topic, but I am not happy with the level of aggression being shown towards numberspy. I have written a couple of "positive" comments about the industry in the past, and been shot down.

The issues being highlighted now are mainly mobile related - and there are loads of problems - perpetrated by mobile aggregators who have failed to act properly.

There are countless "old school" type prs that plug away, with no consumer complaints - horoscopes, weather forecasts, crossword results etc etc.

You cannot tar them all with the same brush!

Originally Posted by silentgenius

I think part of the problem here is that, given the nature of the value chain, everyone is talking at different times about slightly different things.

My impression (and I admit that I've no hard statistics to back up this impression) is that:

A minority of content providers are out and out crooks.

Most (if not all) service providers are happy (to a greater or lesser extent) to form business partnerships with content providers who would fail any reasonable exercise of due diligence but do most of their business with honest (or honestish) CPs.

A minority of service providers (including some big names) are out and out crooks in their own right.

All network providers are happy (to a greater or lesser extent) to form business partnerships with service providers who have a record of teaming up with crooked content providers.

In other words the statements:

"Most PRS services are honest"
and
"Nearly all PRS providers are dishonest"

(correctly understood) are probably both true.