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Complaints About Unsolicited Text Messages Soar

Complaints About Unsolicited Text Messages Soar

Complaints about unwanted text messages have “soared” over the last year, according to The Independent Committee for the Supervision of Standards of Telephone Information Services (Icstis).

The industry regulator, which monitors premium rate calls and text messages, has received over 150 complaints in the last nine months about reverse billing, which occurs when users reply to a promotional text message and end up getting charged as much as £1.50 for the priveledge.

According to Paul Whiting, deputy director at Icstis, unsolicited texts are causing wide concern as they encourage people, often children, to call premium rate numbers to take part completions or enter chartrooms.

He said: “The general rise in text messaging has lead to a drastic increase in the amount of complaints we receive. This time a year ago we were only having to deal with a handful but now things are very different.”

He added: “We have issued the industry with a series of guidelines and we hope to enforce them over the next twelve months. As the medium matures we also hope advertisers will become more responsible.

Last November the ASA upheld its first complaint against an SMS advertisement ruling against a computer games company for sending a spoof text message asking people to report for army duty (see ASA Upholds First SMS Ad Complaint). According the the latest figures from the Mobile Data Association (MDA), 1.38 billion person to person SMS messages were sent during May, an increase of 46 million on the previous month (see Text Trend Continues To Blossom During May).

Icstis: 020 7940 7474 www.icstis.org.uk

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