TIO Annual Report 2004/05

Case Studies

Premium-rate SMS

The complaint:

The complainant claimed that he had been billed for premium-rate SMS services. He said he had attempted, without success, to unsubscribe to the service and denied ever having subscribed in the first instance.

TIO response:

The TIO raised a complaint with the member, requesting that it respond to the complainant’s allegation — that he was being billed for charges for a premium service that he claimed never to have subscribed to — and cited a possible breach of Clause 7.3.1 of the ACIF Billing Code. Clause 7.3.1 relevantly provides that the supplier of a service must ensure that the charges on its bill are able to be verified by the customer as being what he or she asked to receive.

The outcome:

It was the member’s position that all of the disputed premium-rate SMS charges were valid on the grounds that the service had been requested by the complainant’s daughter and therefore, correctly provided to the complainant’s mobile service. However, it waived all disputed charges without any admission of liability.

The member claimed that, on each occasion when the complainant contacted it about receiving the disputed premium-rate SMS, it advised the complainant to contact the content provider to unsubscribe to the service. The member believed it had complied with Clause 7.3.1 of the Billing Code given that the complainant’s daughter had subscribed to the service.

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