Out-Law News 1 min. read

Phone prize scammers fined £100,000


A Welsh company that used automated equipment to ring home phones with pre-recorded messages, prompting consumers to dial premium-rate numbers on the false promise that they had won money, has been fined £100,000.

Mobile Entertainment Group told recipients that they had won either £1,000 cash or a £5,000 reward and urged them to call a £1.50 per minute number to make a claim, said premium rate regulator, ICSTIS.

The regulator used Emergency Procedure powers to shut the service down after receiving 10 complaints over the unsolicited calls.

ICSTIS also barred the company from operating any prize claim lines for the next two years.

“These services are simply unacceptable and further undermine trust in premium rate services,” said ICSTIS Director George Kidd. “These recorded messages are intrusive, misleading and almost certainly illegal. We have acted fast to stop this harm but we realise that we need to remain vigilant and use all our powers to stamp out this sort of behaviour.”

Kidd hinted that figures for the first half of the year, due to be released this week, will show that complaints about premium rate services are generally going down.

The regulator has taken a number of steps this year to increase its powers in tackling scammers.

In March ICSTIS warned premium rate service providers that it would be making more frequent use of the Emergency Procedure in the ICSTIS Code of Practice. The Emergency Procedure – as shown by this case – allows the regulator to remove or bar access to a service that is in serious breach of the Code of Practice.

In September, ICSTIS also introduced new measures to impose a slowdown in the transfer of money between phone networks and those running premium rate services.

These require phone networks not to make payments to their premium rate service providers for at least 30 calendar days after calls have been made, giving ICSTIS time to identify breaches of its Code and, where appropriate, order networks to withhold all payments pending the outcome of investigations.

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