Ringtone scam costs consumers dear
Tricked into £4.50 weekly sub
A SCAM that tricked consumers into a weekly £4.50 subscription has been exposed in its full glory by the INQ.
The fact that no full refund has yet been received by one complainant [the INQ] was described by industry enforcer, PhonePayPlus (PPP), as "an isolated incident."
Consumers had received a message that read, "Download your NO CHARGE Mark Ronson Valerie Ringtone now!'. However, when they followed the link (received by WAP Push) and downloaded the ringtone, they were deemed to have subscribed to a paid-for service.
In this case the content provider was 2 Comm and the service provider was Tanla Mobile. The PPP's official adjudication on the scam revealed that there have been six cases involving Tanla Mobile since May 2007 and two of them involve 2 Comm. The INQ drew the PPP's attention to two of them.
What makes matters worse was the revelation that the word 'STOP' had been sent to Tanla's systems on 458 occasions and nothing happened. Consumers kept being charged. The PPP simply accepted the lame excuse that this was down to a "system failure."
The PPP has informed the INQ previously that it does have the power to enforce refunds but in this instance it accepted Tanla's assurances that the monies would be returned.
Unfortunately, the PPP is displaying astounding naivety. Indeed, when the cheque arrived from Tanla with regard to this INQ hack's own complaint, it was for £1.50 not the £35 charged. It also seemed to relate to an entirely different incident involving a Kyle Minogue ringtone. And there was no company name on the cheque, which we found alarming.
A report way back in December 2004 called for service providers to possess " adequate customer service and redress processes." How much more inadequate does Tanla have to get?
The INQ asked a spokeswoman for the relevant industry body, AIME (Association for Interactive Media and Entertainment) what they might do about Tanla. Effectively she admitted the body was currently too busy trying to expel another member and fighting TV Quiz show negative publicity. µ
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Comments
The mobile will never replace the wallet...
...not when there's absolutely no protection from people dipping the hands into it. Why on Earth do the mobile company regulators (Ofcom?) think it's acceptable for mobile network companies to set up an intermittent opt-out system of 3rd-party direct access to your account. If you're a contract customer you can refuse to pay the bill (but not without massive grief and probable credit rating blackening), but for us PAYG customers our money is already on the phone (un-technically), so these 3rd party 'services' companies literally have a hand in our pockets that we can't do anything about.The whole system for text-based payments should be opt-in from the start and easily disabled by the network company with a simple code or quick call to the customer services number. Just like they do with international roaming - so don't tell me it's not technically feasable!!
PhonePayPlus fines but no criminal prosecutions
Parliamentary Dinner – 18 October 2005A dinner hosted by Alun Michael MP, minister of State for Industry & the Regions, and Sir Peter North of ICSTIS. The invitees were a select band and included NOC, City of London Police, Vodafone, BT and others and was declared to operate under ‘Chatham Rules’ hence nothing said at the meeting could be quoted but an open exchange of views was ensured.
It was an encouraging session with widespread support for a healthy, valuable and responsible PRS Industry but managed in a collaborative fashion with a light regulatory hand.
“From an NOC perspective I was greatly encouraged to see us moving in this direction at long last and I am confident that we will see continuing change in the way PRS is regulated to the benefit of us all and including ICSTIS,” said Roy Ellyatt.
It's worse than you think
The behaviour of PP+ here is, sadly, par for the course.As for AIME, their former chariman Neil Penny actually represented Tanla and 2Comm at one or their PP+ hearings. I don't think you will get any help from AIME.
Also, Neil Penny is friend of James McAteer who registered the 2Comm domain name. James McAteer works for Tanla.
2 Comm Ltd is Tony Kelly and Alan Scott. Tony Kelly is a former business partner of Ian Vaughan (Google "flying lessons" and these names!)
Alan Scott is a friend of James McAteer and of Neil Penny.
2Comm and Tanla are members of AIME along with most of the big networks.
Whats The Point
WHY WHY WHY do people buy ringtones for there mobile phones for those who can use MP3's as a ringtones. Just use Windows Movie Maker 2 add the ringtones and cut it at the part you think sounds cool fade it out or in depends. Save it to My Movies (default location) and then find a MP3 converter to convert it from WMA to MP3 and bam 1 ringtone.I've done that for years and whats the toll on my wallet NOTHING!!!
So, um
You recieved an unsolicited txt message, it offered you stuff for free, you clicked to download the ringtone, and you got scammed. And you're surprised?If you received a spam email that asked you to run an EXE file attached to it, would you? Of course not. Well, I wouldn't, anyway. On the strength of this article, I suspect that you actually may.
@Dave B
"So, umYou recieved an unsolicited txt message, it offered you stuff for free, you clicked to download the ringtone, and you got scammed. And you're surprised?
If you received a spam email that asked you to run an EXE file attached to it, would you? Of course not. Well, I wouldn't, anyway. On the strength of this article, I suspect that you actually may.
posted by : Dave B, 19 May 2008"
Fair point ............ except that this industry (unlike the internet) is supposedly regulated - by PhonePayPlus.
They are always telling us that their regulation means that we can have confidence in this industry. Tanla mobile is not some isolated fly-by-night operation, it is one of the main players in PRS in the UK and has recently been accredited by O2 to run the PayForIt (phone becomes electronic wallet) service which (unlike "free" ringtones) the consumer might reasonably expect to be run by an honest company.