Antiphony Limited (Case reference: 01473)
| Case Number | 01473 |
| Published date | 10 December 2009 |
| Adjudicated Party | Antiphony Limited |
| Procedure Type | Emergency Procedure (Phone-Paid Services Authority) |
TRIBUNAL DECISION
Thursday, 26 November 2009
TRIBUNAL SITTING No. 41 / CASE 1
CASE REFERENCE: 812535/AB
Information Provider: Antiphony Limited, Buckinghamshire
Service Provider: WIN (Wireless Information Network) Plc, High Wycombe
Type of service: Virtual Chat
Service title: Adult Sex Exchange
Service numbers: 69844 and 89949
Cost: £1.50 per message received from the shortcode
Network operator: All Mobile Network Operators
Number of complainants: 20
THIS CASE WAS BROUGHT AGAINST THE INFORMATION PROVIDER
UNDER PARAGRAPH 8.7 OF THE CODE
BACKGROUND
The PhonepayPlus Executive (the ‘Executive’) received 20 complaints relating to a virtual chat
service operating on shortcode 69844. The same service was also operated on shortcode
89949, which was promoted in the Daily Sport. The service was entitled the “Adult Sex
Exchange” and was advertised as a contact and adult dating service. The Executive monitored
the service, which was promoted in the Daily Sport. It was entered by texting a key word to a
shortcode. Following complaints, and its own monitoring, the Executive alleged, amongst other
things, that, after initiating the service, and without any further interaction, the Executive
continued to receive chargeable text messages, did not receive a £10 spend reminder and that
users who had sent the ‘STOP’ command in reply to promotions were still receiving them.
The Executive invoked its Emergency Procedure in respect of the alleged breach of paragraph
7.3.3b of the PhonepayPlus Code of Practice (11th Edition Amended April 2008) (‘the Code’),
issuing a direction to the Mobile Network Operators to immediately withhold revenue and bar
access to the services.
(i) The Service
The service operated on shortcodes 69844 and 89949. It was also promoted by the use of
mobile long numbers operating on a 076 prefix.
The Executive monitored the service promoted in the Daily Sport on two different hand-sets. On
both handsets, the service was initiated by sending the trigger word ‘HOT’. The Executive then
received a text message requesting the user’s age and gender. Once the Executive had sent
this information by text message, it did not interact any further with the service. Over the course
of two days, the Executive continued to receive chargeable text messages from shortcode
69844 along with text messages from the 076 prefix. On both handsets, the Executive received
over 20 text messages and was charged over £20.00.
The Executive’s monitoring exercise demonstrated that even after being charged £10.00, the
Executive still had not interacted with the service but continued to receive chargeable text
messages. The Executive acknowledges that reminder messages were sent during the
dialogue.
(ii)The Investigation
The Executive conducted this matter under the Emergence Procedure in accordance with
paragraph 8.6 of the Code.
On being informed of the reasons for the Emergency Procedure, the Service Provider requested
that PhonepayPlus dealt directly with the Information Provider under paragraph 8.7 of the Code
and supplied the Executive with appropriate signed undertaking forms on 8 October 2009. The
Executive accepted this pass through and raised potential breaches of paragraphs 3.3.3, 5.2,
5.4.1a, 5.7.1, 5.8, 5.11b, 7.3.2c and 7.3.3b of the PhonepayPlus Code of Practice (11th Edition
Amended April 2008) (‘the Code’).
The Tribunal made a decision on the breaches raised by the Executive on 26 November 2009,
having heard Informal Representations from the Information Provider.
SUBMISSIONS AND CONCLUSIONS
ALLEGED BREACH ONE
ADEQUATE TECHNICAL QUALITY (Paragraph 3.3.3)
“Service providers much use all reasonable endeavours to ensure that all of their services are
of an adequate technical quality.”
1. The Executive monitored the service operating on shortcode 69844. It received
numerous billed text messages following initiation of the service even though there had
been no further interaction with the service by the Executive after initiation. It did not
receive a £10 spend reminder. When this was put to the Information Provider it
responded as follows:
“All Antiphony text dating services are designed to comply with the
£10 cost warning & MO(user message [sic]) reply-to-continue functionality that is
mandated for the industry. It appears the MO “reply-to-continue” functionality has not
worked correctly in several cases. Since our investigations commenced Friday we have
run analysis on our user base, services & set-up to try to isolate or replicate the problem.
Our latest understanding is that the problem is being caused by a faulty section of code.
This is affecting users intermittently depending on when they pass through this particular
piece of code. As an intermittent problem it appears so far to have affected several
hundred individual users of the service from our preliminary investigations and since we
detect the problem was first introduced by a coding error.”
Following the imposition of the Emergency Procedure and the suspension of the service,
one of the mobile phones used by the Executive in its monitoring exercise continued to
receive chargeable messages. When this was put to the Information Provider, it
responded as follows:-
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