PhonepayPlus imposes token fine on Tanla

[mike99]

PhonepayPlus Tribunal on 25 September

Recent adjudications and reviews


The following cases were heard at a meeting of the PhonepayPlus Tribunal on 25 September 2008. The full adjudications will be published on the PhonepayPlus adjudication database in due course.

Adjudications

Service Provider Tanla Mobile Ltd

Information Provider VisionSMS Ltd

Service Name Vis-Videos

Breaches upheld against VisionSMS Ltd

Procedure Standard
Summary


PhonepayPlus received 45 consumer complaints in respect of the receipt of unsolicited chargeable text messages, which cost £1.50 each and were received in batches of six.

Examples of such messages are as follows:

‘Thank you for your order of babe videos' or ‘New content will be available shortly'.

The information provider, VisionSMS Ltd, stated that the service was called ‘Vis-Videos' which offered users the opportunity to download as many videos of ‘glamour-type' content as were available for £9 per week. It explained that the service was promoted using WAP push messages, which were sent to people whose details had been purchased from a 3rd party data supplier. The information provider claimed that only users who opened the link in the WAP push, went to the WAP landing page and then clicked on another link called ‘Download your Babe Videos Now!' would be subscribed to the service and then charged via the 81303, 81404 (non-adult) shortcodes.

The following breaches of the 11th Edition (Amended April 2008) PhonepayPlus Code Practice were raised:

Paragraph 3.3.1 - General duties - designated codes/number ranges
Paragraph 5.2 - Legality
Paragraph 5.8 - Contact Information
Paragraph 5.12 - Inappropriate Promotion
Paragraph 7.12.4 - Subscription Initiation
Paragraph 7.12.5 - Subscription Reminders
The Tribunal upheld breaches of paragraphs 3.3.1, 5.2, 5.8, 5.12, 7.12.4 and 7.12.5. The Tribunal considered the case to be serious, ordered the information provider to remedy the breaches, issued a formal reprimand and imposed a fine of £2,000. The Tribunal ordered the information provider to seek compliance advice from PhonepayPlus within two weeks of the publication of the full decision. Such advice must then be implemented within two weeks of receipt. 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.

No increase in view of the fact that Tanla have a history of repeated breaches - 12 I think (it's hard to say without spending more time on this because, as with mblox, PP+ have put Tanla's misdeeds under more than one heading to make the lists of repeat offences look shorter).