Regulator ICSTIS (Independent Committee for the Supervision of
Standards of the Telephone Information Services) classified two
cases involving 1RT as 'serious' and fined it £3,500 in one case
and £2,250 in the other.
ICSTIS polices the use of premium rate numbers, which were in
operation in each case, and had received complaints about two
unsolicited commercial fax campaigns, one promoting a competition
and the other promoting a posture-correcting chair.
In each case 1RT was the phone network registered with ICSTIS
and in each case it claimed that it was not the 'service provider'
under the terms of the ICSTIS Code because it was acting on behalf
of other companies.
In both rulings the ICSTIS panel said that 1RT's action
"demonstrated more involvement in the premium rate service than
merely providing network facilities," it said. "The Panel noted
specific characteristics of 1RT which it concluded were sufficient
to demonstrate that it was the service provider for the purposes of
the Code."
The faxes both asked for responses from recipients, but the
response numbers were premium rate numbers. In one of the cases one
complainant said that they did not know how long a responding fax
would take to send and that they were held on the expensive line
for seven minutes.
In that fax's case the ICSTIS Secretariat had claimed that the
pricing information was not prominent enough, but the panel did not
uphold that claim. It did, though, uphold the claim that the faxes
were sent to private fax numbers, were unsolicited and represented
marketing material.
It also found that some of the complaints were from people whose
numbers were registered with the Fax Preference Service (FPS),
which is a list of people who have asked not to receive commercial
faxes. Though 1RT said that it had ensured that no FPS registered
numbers received the faxes, the panel said that one of the
complaints had come from someone who said their number was FPS
registered.
The company was issued in both cases with a formal reprimand and
with a bar on access to any fax service for six months.
The penalties stand in contrast to those for email spam, which
is much harder to police. Because a company must register with
ICSTIS in order to use a premium rate line there is always an audit
trail back to a network provider.
