NEWS Premium rate regulator Icstis has issued a £100,000 fine to a company accused of making unsolicited recorded calls promising exotic prizes.
Icstis had received a number of complaints about the firm, Digital Media, which promised recipients of its calls that they had "won one of a number of prizes", including a return trip to Paris. A recorded message advised 'winners' that time was running out to claim their prize and encouraged them to call a premium rate number to register.
Icstis said complainants reported a number of faults with the company, including telling 'winners' they were receiving the call because they had previously entered a prize draw, using misleading contact information and trying to pass off the recorded message as real.
Digital Media didn't respond to the breaches. Access was immediately blocked to the company, which was then fined £100,000 and barred from operating a prize line for 18 months.
Comments
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1. Simon
And about time too, the scum that continually invade our private time (in spite of being listed with TPS) etc have had it far too easy for far too long.
2. Philip Bird
A fine is not enough. The directors of this company should be locked up for 10 years for fraud.
3. Tim Jackson
We used to hang highwaymen. Bring back hanging for information-highway-men
There is something wrong with the system when robbers are stopped on a technicality, told to desist robbing for 18 months, then allowed to carry on!
Their entire business model is based on defrauding the public. Isn't there a law against that somewhere? The point of having laws is to prevent antisocial behaviour. This is indubitably widespread antisocial behaviour - no-one actually wants these calls - so if we don't already have one we need a law against it.
4. Lionel A Smith
I am not sure about hanging but bringing back the pillory for such offences would be a detterent I am sure. This not in anyway to rule out the paying of any compensation due to those cheated.
5. Don Tregartha
They should never have been licensed in the first place. The problem is until ICSTIS realises that these scams have NO public interest whatsoever and refuses to even let them get started, these firms will just carry on. The fine will just become an operational overhead as there are plenty of mug punters who think that they might just win a prize.
It would be nice if ICSTIS published their office numbers so we could amuse ourselves running rings round them, send them some pizzas - you know the kind of thing!
6. Oliver Anderson
Can Silicon.Com follow up on this and let us know if the fine is actually paid? I'm unsure what legal powers ICSTIS has to collect this fine and would hate them to get away with a positive headline for no real effect.
7. anonymous
This is no worse that all the other 'cons' that go on today, including scratchcards, encouraging smoking and drinking, adverts for slimming methods, cheap holidays, etc etc. It just seems to attract lots of publicity, when, for example, the extension of the drinking times which is likely to lead to more harm to more people gets relatively little attention. These activities all prey on the less well informed or those who cannot make good decisions for themselves. Either we move to an extreme 'nanny' state, which I doubt most of your readers want, or we seek to better inform the population of how to decide how and where to spend their money, and the consequences of doing that. Then the incidents of these 'cons' will be diminished.
8. Mike
The company make their money out of the premium calls. BT or whoever your phone company is should just refuse to hand over the cash and refund the subscribers. What are the scammers going to do sue them? Because to sue them, they have to admit their fraud!
The solution is with the phone companies.
9. anonymous
Perhaps the standard position should be "opted out" of Premoium Rate and Revenue Share calls - only opting in, in writing, for specific costs.
Oh, and free front-end announcements on each such call.