EU cracks down on ringtone websites

Seven out of ten websites selling mobile phone services, which were under investigation by the EU have been closed down or improved their behaviour.

Many of these sites were targeting children with premium-rate services for ringtones, music downloads and more.

Since June 2008, when initial checks took place, 301 websites were investigated by national enforcement authorities for serious breaches of EU consumer law. Since then 70 per cent of the 301 cases investigated have been resolved. Only 54 websites had to be closed.

Phonepayplus, an investigating body said 43 UK websites were checked.

The UK regulator of phone-paid services said 39 needed further investigation. Since then 17 of the illegal websites no longer offer the suspect services or are no longer in operation.

Two sites are still under investigation but the rest are complying with Phonepayplus’ rules and EU consumer law.

Four companies, Boltblue International, Roughgate Ltd (previously known as Boltblue International), Bullroarer Corporation and Red Circle Technologies were formally reprimanded by Phonepayplus.

Except Roughgate, each company was fined sums ranging between £1,000 to a whopping £55,000 for Bullroarer.

There were three main problems according to Phonepayplus, which worked with the Office of Fair Trading on the investigation. The companies were guilty of misleading advertising – particularly advertising ringtones as ‘free’ when the consumer was in fact tied into a paying subscription.

The regulator also found that the pricing for the services on the sites was unclear. For example information was missing or incomplete.

The sites under investigation often failed to provide the consumer with complete trader information such as contact details and addresses.

This is a breach of both the Ecommerce directive and Distance Selling directive.