The results of the EU sweep, in which EU member states
coordinated an assessment of mobile phone services. It found that
four in five websites selling premium-rate mobile services breached
consumer protection laws.
In July 2008 when that sweep was conducted PPP received 1,981
complaints. Last month it received 746, a decrease of 62% over 15
months.
In January of this year PPP tightened regulation of premium-rate
mobile services. It introduced new rules which forced providers to
outline clearly to customers of expensive services exactly what
charges they are accepting.
"Any consumer joining a subscription service which costs more
than £4.50 per week must first receive a free confirmation text
message detailing the cost and conditions of the service. The
consumer cannot be charged until they have confirmed their
subscription by replying to that text," under the new rules, it
said.
It also said that pricing information should be transparent and
that users should be able to immediately opt out by texting STOP to
the service provider.
The fall in complaints is from a high in July 2008. In that
month PPP said that there had been a steady and "extraordinary
increase" in complaints about mobile services, which by then had
increased by more than 100% on the previous year. It had fined
operators more in the first three months of 2008 than in the whole
of 2007, it said.
The European Commission said that since its sweep in July 2008
70% of the sites it identified as problematic are now compliant or
defunct. It said that 301 sites were investigated and, of which 159
have changed and 54 have closed.
It said that national regulators would continue to work on the
outstanding cases.
"The three main problems found were: unclear pricing (for
example, information was missing or incomplete); failure to provide
complete trader information; and misleading advertising, in
particular, advertising ringtones as 'free' where the consumer is
in fact tied into a paying subscription," said a Commission
statement on the results of the sweep.
“This EU wide investigation was a direct response to hundreds of
complaints coming in from parents and consumers from many different
EU countries," said EU Consumer Commissioner Meglena Kuneva. "Young
people should not have to fall victim to scams like misleading
advertising that lure them into ringtone subscriptions they thought
were free. And parents should not find nasty surprises in their
phone bill, when their children by accident have signed up to more
than they have bargained for."
"These results show that EU wide enforcement co-operation can
make a huge difference in cleaning up a market for consumers. This
kind of joint enforcement action is where EU consumer policy will
focus a lot of efforts in the future," she said.
The Commission said that over half of the sites examined were
targeted at children and used devices such as cartoon figures or
television characters to entice them to sign up to services.
All but four of the 43 UK sites identified in the sweep required
investigation. Many related to services that were in fact defunct,
and the rest were subject to PPP investigations and enforcement.
Some are ongoing, PPP said.
Mobile content trade body the Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF)
said that the industry would benefit from more consistent
regulation, possibly on an EU-wide basis.
"We would welcome discussion with the EU on the regulation of
mobile services, said Suhail Bhat, Policy and Initiatives Director,
Mobile Entertainment Forum. "The regulations for the same content
vary tremendously and are applied inconsistently in different
Member States. In many cases, there are multiple regulators with
remits over both the advertising and content of services. As
convergence becomes a reality, more discussion is needed to ensure
consumers continue to enjoy mobile content services.”
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