This year Phonepayplus admitted there had been a 40% year on year rise in complaints from the public claiming they had received reverse billed premium rate sms texts that they insisted they had not sgned up for.
Phonepayplus admitted the major cause for this rise in complaints was the 'black market' trading within the 'industry' of third party data lists of mobile phone numbers. They also admitted that these lists had been collected and sold by price comparison sites and retailers that had no connection with Premium Rate Services.
If Phonepayplus were aware of this in the cases they 'investigated' how many did they refer to the ICO. How many of these 'companies' have the ICO investigated and prosecuted using the Data Protection Act?
Millions of pounds stolen from mobile phone accounts and not one prosecution.