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PhonepayPlus gets stern on premium raters

Code Monkey

Grumble 

Posted Tuesday 27th January 2009 11:34 GMT

So £4.49 is reasonable?

Kids today, more money than sense, grumblegrumblegrumblegrumble

Steve

Right 

Posted Tuesday 27th January 2009 12:17 GMT

So I taking this is also referring to all thoses soddng adverts late at night on tv.

Saying so and so is waiting to text you etc etc.

Now thats a Rip off service if I ever saw one.

g e

Eh? £4.49? 

Posted Tuesday 27th January 2009 12:44 GMT

I'm assuming the £4.50 is mostly referring to premium rate text services which generally charge as 10p, 25p, 50p, £1 and £1.50 per message received (MT messaging), different to the similar rates charged as MO which bill you to text INTO the shortcode, not to receive messages from it.

Having worked in premium rate in the past I can attest to the amount of shady dealings and creative 'terms of service' used to wring every last penny out of the hapless consumer. This revision is a good thing. I'm pretty sure it was one of my platform's clients that was directly responsible for ICSTIS (as Phonepayplus were then) banning the practise of 'minimum subscription' from terms or service and rightly so too... the piss was truly being taken.

Anonymous Coward

About Time, but does it go far enough????? 

Posted Tuesday 27th January 2009 13:34 GMT

Coat

I work in the mobile phone industry, and a lot of the complaints are directed at the mobile companies by the end user of the service. With the prevalance of pay as you go mobiles in the UK, a lot of the "younger" generation (read younger than 15) have access to mobile communications through the pay as you go services, and some of them even have contract phones which are paid for by "daddy". When subscribing to a service, the customer (in my opinion) should receive a callback from the subscription service, and be asked to confirm that they are the payer of the bill (which will stop Company provided mobiles, and also young children) subscribing to a service which someone else foots the bill for, and verification of their identity (Name, Address etc) which can be referenced through the Mobile Network that the person subscribing to the service is authorised to do so. Also, there should be clear information on the service (preferably at the top of the content) stating on the cost of receiving the content, and also how to unsubscribe BEFORE THEY ACCESS THE CONTENT!

mines the asbestos one with matching hat and gloves....

Anonymous Coward

Should apply to ALL premium-rate services 

Posted Tuesday 27th January 2009 13:53 GMT

Thumb Down

"They will not be allowed to operate unless they provide subscribers with a free text message outlining the service's cost and cannot sign a customer up until that person replies to the cost warning saying they still want to subscribe to the service."

The £4.50 minimum for this requirement is ridiculous. ALL premium-rate so-called "services" should be subject to this requirement.

David Hicks

Should be for them all 

Posted Tuesday 27th January 2009 14:46 GMT

Unhappy

They are all misleading at present.

Send 12345 to 88567 to get this ringtone!

(For 20 quid, plus you're signing up to our 2 quid a day service, with an extra 1.50 for our daily text message).

This bit made me laugh -

"A majority of industry respondents were sceptical of the need for subscription services to seek active consumer confirmation, on the grounds that this could cause consumer confusion and adversely affect sales"

No, you mean it might cause consumers to think about what they're doing and it might end the providers ability to mislead them and con them into a subscription they don't want.

Rip-off artists every one, preying on the impulsive/stupid.

b166er

Not enough 

Posted Tuesday 27th January 2009 21:40 GMT

Why not go all the way, send a strong message by telling all these leeching bastards to fuck off and at the same time telling this dumbass society not to be so fscking stoopid.

But why should I care?