With reverse-SMS billing, a mobile phone owner is billed for
receiving a text message, as opposed to sending one. Prices and
conditions vary and, in a routine examination of magazine ads for
such services, ICSTIS found such an ad in the March edition of
Loaded that appeared to breach its Code of Practice.
ICSTIS, the Independent Committee for the Supervision of
Standards of the Telephone Information Services, is the
industry-funded regulatory body for all premium rate charged
telecommunications services.
It said the terms and conditions for FTXT's services, as printed
in the magazine, were barely legible. The text was too small and
the background colour of the ad was too dark. This rendered
important information about costs and unsubscribing illegible. It
was "tantamount to being omitted," wrote ICSTIS.
The regulator also pointed to the following statement in the
terms and conditions: "…subsequent messages charged at £1.50
photo's rcvp charged at 1 msg photos' sent at 2msgs". ICSTIS
considered this "practically meaningless".
There were other problems. The ad's promotion for "live sex
text" invited readers to "flirt and swap photo’s (sic)". But ICSTIS
said it was unclear how this service would operate and whether the
service involved simply swapping photos or whether there was also
an element of chat.
The live sex text service was also advertised as being free.
This was deemed misleading because only the first message was free;
all subsequent messages would be charged at £1.50. Although this
was made clear in the terms and conditions, there was nothing
linking the word "free" in the main body of the ad to the terms and
conditions. ICSTIS also expects pricing prominence. The pricing
should be stand-alone, it reasoned, not three lines into a set of
terms.
A promotion for a free adult mobile menu appeared to be
contradictory. It stated: "no charge to view all our adult content
including 1000's of photo's and videos." But the conditions
referred only to a free "menu" and stated that the actual content
would be charged.
This was not the first time that the ad had appeared. It had
previously been adjudicated upon in November 2005, resulting in a
fine of £40,000. After a review, whilst the breaches were upheld,
the fine was reduced to £2,500 in January 2006. With the March
edition of Loaded featuring the same ad, ICSTIS took
action again.
MX Telecom Ltd responded to ICSTIS' findings, after
consultation with FTXT, before yesterday's ruling was made. It
pointed out that the ad had been submitted to Loaded in
January 2006, before the outcome of the review of the first case.
No matter, said ICSTIS. The service provider had been told in
November 2005 that the ad was breaching the code.
Accordingly, in its capacity as the company responsible for
compliance with ICSTIS' Code of Practice, MX Telecom Ltd was fined
£40,000 and issued with a formal reprimand. It was also
"encouraged" to seek copy advice for such promotions from the
Secretariat of ICSTIS for the next three months.
