TIO Annual Report 2006/07

Case study: Mobile Premium Services #2

The complaint

The complainant contacted the TIO about a $2,600 bill for premium SMS charges that he did not request.
He said that he first became aware of the charges when his provider contacted him to advise that his bill had reached $1,000, at which time he was told that the charges were for a dating service. He said that despite him sending a “stop” message, the messages continued.

The provider said it considered the consumer responsible for the charges as he had registered for the service by providing his personal details, and there was no record of his having texted “stop”. In order to resolve the complaint, it offered to waive about $500 of the disputed charges.

TIO response

The TIO asked the provider for a full copy of all text messages between the consumer’s mobile and the dating service. It was clear that, while the consumer had requested the service, he had also sent a “stop” message. The provider responded to the “stop” message by advising that the session was closed, and that in order to restart the consumer would need to send his name.

At the same time, however, the dating service sent a message to the complainant advising that the person he had been conversing with was “in the office”. In subsequent messages that appeared to relate to the complainant’s request to cancel the service, the dating service gave the impression that the service had been cancelled and that any further contact the complainant may choose to have was not be through the dating service – rather, it would be as a private text conversation between the complainant and the dating service’s operator. This contact appeared to be the starting point for an additional 600 premium messages to the complainant, at a cost of about $1200, despite the complainant questioning in a return message how the dating service was able to send him messages when the service had been cancelled.

The outcome

The mobile provider offered to reduce the charges to $800 to reflect the charges that the consumer had used before texting “stop” and the TIO’s position on unlimited credit.

The complainant advised that he was satisfied with this resolution.

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