Text spammers from 'shady' firms will face fines of 500,000
From ‘sympathetic’ enquiries about car accidents to concern that you may have been mis-sold an insurance policy, text spammers – mass senders of unsolicited texts – come in many guises. But from this month they face fines of up to 500,000 as the authorities attempt to clamp down on a fast-growing problem.
One survey found that an astonishing 20 million mobile phone users had received messages such as: ‘Free Msg: Important! Records indicate you are entitled to 3,700 from Mis-Sold Loan Insurance (PPI). To claim reply YES to this message. Thank you.’
Many recipients of this message have never taken out loan insurance.
Big business: Survey found 20m mobile phone users had received messages
This is text-spamming – hundreds of
thousands of mobile phone users are sent texts promising help with
insurance claims or pensions services. They are unsolicited and have
been sent without the consent of the recipient – and those responsible
can rarely be identified.
The
aim is to get a response of any kind. Even a STOP texted back to the
sender shows that the mobile number is ‘live’ and is therefore a
potential channel of communication.
Sending
such texts can be a lucrative business – a lead generated by text can
be sold for 5 to a claims management firm, which in turn can sell it
for 300 to claims solicitors, says the Direct Marketing Association,
whose members use texting to market services legitimately. A survey by
Royal Bank of Scotland showed that 11 per cent of all accident claims
came from text spamming.
But
from this month, the Information Commissioner’s Office has the power to
fine organisations that send texts to consumers who did not agree to
receive them.
Simon
Entwisle, director of operations at the ICO, said: ‘We believe there has
been a huge increase towards the end of last year in sending texts to
randomly generated numbers.’
In
its own survey it quoted several victims of text spamming. One said:
‘The text was sent to my 11-year-old son and to at least two of his
school friends. I texted back STOP and received a further text
instantly. It’s hard to imagine that there is nothing sinister going on
when these messages are received.’
Another
said: ‘I was bombarded daily with these after texting STOP to one. I
then replied CLAIM to find out who was contacting me. The first time I
was called by a company that said it would take the details of my
accident and forward them to a solicitor. I then asked how they got my
details and they hung up.’
Entwisle said the ICO was determined to trace offenders, but faced a difficult task.
‘The
spammers are not easy to track down,’ he said. ‘There is a spider’s
web of organisations that are linked in this and everyone we talk to
says that as far as they are concerned these leads have been obtained
legitimately.’
Text
spammers often use pay-as-you-go mobile phone SIM cards hooked up to a
computer that can handle 300 or so cards to send automated text
messages. The spammers buy SIM cards with a minimum top-up of 5 and
are able to send up to 20,000 messages per card.
When
mobile phone operators spot a pattern of texts from a SIM card, they
can close it down. Mobile operators disconnected about 2,000 text
spammers a month last year – but the spammers simply move on to a new
card.
However, Entwisle
said the ICO was working on a number of cases and hoped to make an
announcement soon. He said complaints about such texts tripled in the
past couple of years to 1,607 in the 12 months to the end of January
and advised anyone receiving one not to reply in any way.
Mark Brill, chairman of the DMA’s mobile marketing council, said he wanted to see rules enforced and offenders penalised.
‘There
are some legitimate claims management firms and some rather shady ones.
There seems to be very little requirement in the claims management
industry that a lead must be obtained legitimately,’ he said.
Brill
runs a legitimate text marketing agency and said any supplier of a list
of leads that came from text marketing ought to be able to tell
consumers exactly where and when they gave their consent to receive
marketing texts.
The
claims management companies sell their services to solicitors, who are
themselves not allowed to make unsolicited approaches to potential
clients.
The Solicitors
Regulation Authority said the onus was on solicitors to make sure they
received business only through scrupulous methods. But it admitted that
there were no specific requirements governing what solicitors should
ask.
A spokesman said:
‘Solicitors must be satisfied that the introducer is not doing things
the solicitor couldn’t do. Claims management companies are not prevented
by their own rules from cold calling by phone, but their rules say they
can’t put solicitors in breach of our rules.’
The
Ministry of Justice oversees the industry via the Claims Management
Regulator. It said: ‘Claims management companies are subject to strict
rules of conduct, including on marketing.
‘Sending unsolicited text messages for marketing purposes is a clear breach of these rules.
‘We
have made it very clear to businesses that we will not accept any
malpractice or attempts to take advantage of consumers. Companies should
remain in no doubt that if they breach the rules they will face
enforcement action that could result in them being closed down.’
Perhaps the spammers themselves will soon be getting an unwelcome intrusion into their own lives.
How to report those spams
Accident claims, debts and mis-sold payment protection are the top three subjects of text spamming.
Call the Information Commissioner’s Office 0303 123 1113 helpline if you have responded to a spam text and your details have been passed to a claims company.To contact your mobile operator about spam texts, call customer services or use one of the following numbers:
Orange, O2 and T-Mobile: Forward the text to 7726;
Vodafone: Forward the text to 87726;
Three: Forward the text to 37726.
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