Phonepayplus imposes six-month ban on premium rate service marketing company

A marketing firm, which charged people for unsolicited text messages has been fined £9,000 by Phonepayplus and given a six month ban on using premium rate services (PRS).

The UK's PRS regulator said Wild ACE Marketing Ltd had given it false information, breached the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) and broken aspects of its Code of Practice.

Such was the concern that mBlox, Wild's PRS provider suspended the company's service. Phonepayplus said mBlox was worried that although Wild claimed to have obtained people's prior consent, it had not.

"The complainants in the Wild Ace case were sent a mixture of free and chargeable texts. The chargeable texts cost £1.50," Phonepayplus told us.

Under PECR organisations are not allowed to send unsolicted marketing emails or text messages. amounts to spam text messages. The Phonepayplus Code of Practice contains a rule that requires PRS providers and their promotional material to "comply with the law".

In a statement PhonepayPlus said: "The Tribunal found that the [seven] complainants had received unsolicited promotions from [Wild], and accordingly upheld a breach of [the Code's rules on legality].

"The Tribunal also upheld a breach of [the fairness rules] of the Code on one of two alleged grounds, on the basis that one of the messages received by consumers was misleading.

"The Tribunal further upheld a breach of [the provision of information rules] of the Code on the basis that [Wild] had provided [Phonepayplus] with false, inaccurate and misleading information in the course of the investigation of this matter.

"The Tribunal imposed the following sanctions: a formal reprimand, a fine of £9,000, and a prohibition on [Wild] from involvement in, or contracting for, the provision of premium rate services for a period of six months."

We have asked Wild for comment.