COMPLAINTS BY phone users about premium rate services more than trebled last year because of bad service and the “dubious” activities of some operators, according to the regulator for the sector.
RegTel received 6,062 complaints in 2007/08, compared to 1,704 the previous year, according to its latest annual report.
The biggest concern was the number of consumers who denied having subscribed to expensive premium rate services.
Another 22,000 people contacted RegTel seeking advice on how to unsubscribe from such services.
RegTel itself uncovered almost 1,000 breaches of its code of practice for fixed-line services such as horoscopes, competitions and ringtones and over 400 breaches in promotional and advertising materials.
Arising from monitoring and investigations by the regulator, refunds totalling almost €200,000 were made to customers and one company made a donation of nearly €100,000 to 11 charities.
In the report, RegTel chairman Fred Hayden says the marketing tactics of some service providers have damaged the public perception of premium rate services and encouraged greater scrutiny by Government authorities.
He blames the stagnation of the market on a lack of consumer trust in those who operate the services and the “questionable” ways they are sometimes promoted. Practices such as disguised subscription services, the misuse of databases and unclear or hidden pricing have led to strong calls for action to halt such abuses, he said.
Mr Hayden says the sector has reached the end of an era of self-regulation; the State-controlled regulator for the wider telecommunications sector, Comreg, is due to assume responsibility for premium rates services shortly.
The regulator, Pat Breen, says much energy is expended trying to track the activities and confront a small number of companies who are continuing to avoid regulation. These operators were damaging the industry by their wayward actions but the vast majority of service providers operated within the industry code of practice.
According to Mr Breen, RegTel’s system of prior authorisation for premium rate numbers used for television shows has worked well by avoiding the abuses which occurred in other countries.
Last year, Irish people received 76 million chargeable premium texts, down 5 per cent on the previous year; each text cost an average 82 cent. The report attributes this decline to a number of factors, including the poor image of some services, problems with unsolicited communications, misleading promotional material and the abuse of some technology to mislead consumers.
Other problems investigated included service providers failing to implement the “Stop” command, consumers not being notified of the €20 spending limit, and the use of multiple tariffs for the same service.
RegTel suggests a number of reasons for the surge in complaints, including greater awareness of its services and the use of people’s phones without their permission.
It investigated a random sample of complaints in which the consumer claimed not to have subscribed to a service and found that in almost every case the records showed that a “valid subscription” had been effected. Mr Breen says his intention is to find out why this problem is occurring and to take effective measures to resolve it.