The Register reports that the trial programme, known as VSPAM,
has been used for the last month by Vodafone employees and has now
been extended to Vodafone customers.
Customers simply forward the message to 87726 or VSPAM, allowing
Vodafone to collate all the messages and send them to premium rate
services regulator ICSTIS, the Independent Committee for the
Supervision of Standards of Telephone Information Services.
Until now customers have
been advised to report all spam to ICSTIS themselves but relatively
few bother to do so. According to The Register, Deputy Director of
ICSTIS Paul Whiteing welcomed the move. He said: "We will continue
to work with all mobile operators to identify ways to stamp out
this practice so that consumers can have confidence when using
premium rate services on their mobiles."
ICSTIS is not shy of taking action against offenders. In
February this year it reported that Polo Ltd, a company based in
the British Virgin Islands, had been fined £15,000 for sending spam
text messages that tricked UK consumers into believing they had won
a £150 prize, to be claimed by calling a premium rate number on
their mobile phones.
Last year Leeds based firm, Moby Monkey, was fined twice by the
regulator - £50,000 and £10,000 - over misleading spam text
messages about a lottery, and a mystery award.
