2008 scams: Phonepayplus pocket £1.3m cut

[El Gringo]

During 2008 phonepayplus 'ordered' the UK premium rate industry to hand over a £1.8m share of the money that had been stolen, swindled and scammed from the UK public.
The 'industry' only handed over £1.3m.

http://www.phonepayplus.org.uk/pdfs_...nAndBudget.pdf
Fines: as of 30 November 2008 fines are down in 2008/9, compared to the same period in 2007/8. In 2007/8 there were significant penalties imposed on Participation TV services which has not been the case to date in 2008/9. We are assuming that approximately £1.3 million of fine income will be available for use in 2009/10.

and Phonepayplus are not very happy.

http://www.phonepayplus.org.uk/news/...r_20081219.asp
Where a service provider fails to pay a fine and/or administrative charge and a network operator is found to be in breach of the Code through poor due diligence, the Tribunal may include within any fine sanction imposed on the network operator, the entire fine and/or administrative charge amount owed by the service provider.
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PhonepayPlus reminds the industry that it will vigorously pursue full recovery of all fines and administrative charges imposed by a Tribunal, including those imposed in relation to services operating on 070 prefixed numbers.

PhonepayPlus draws attention to the decision of the High Court in the case of ICSTIS v Liquidators of Allied Communications Limited [2007] EWHC 2307 (Admin), which clarified that ICSTIS (now PhonepayPlus) is able to sue service providers or network operators in respect of any unpaid fines and administrative charges which it had directed to be paid to it. The Judgement also reinforces PhonepayPlus' status as a legitimate creditor for insolvency purposes in respect of any unpaid fines and administrative charges.

until has recently as Nov 2008 it appears one of the 07 scammers that had failed to pay the fine was Jack Barnard Telecom

http://www.phonepayplus.org.uk/publi...008_2009Q2.pdf
Of the £355,000 fines outstanding, Jack Barnard Telecom Services accounts for £200,000 of the total (this will be raised at the next Tribunal) and £115,000 were levied in October’s Tribunal and are awaiting
payment.

http://www.phonepayplus.org.uk/pdfs_...nAndBudget.pdf
Looking Forward to 2009/10

As we move into 2009/10 we have a clear sense of a number of challenges which, once met, will build trust in phone paid services. We also recognise, as the UK economy moves into recession, that this may have a range of consequences for the provision of phone-paid services.
A recession will have a disruptive effect on some business models currently deployed in the market and in situations such as these it is not unreasonable to expect some players to exit the market in such tough trading conditions. As a regulator we are mindful of the need to watch for downside risks that some of those players may cause consumer detriment as their outlook moves from long-term to short-term.