100 signatures reached
To: Competition and Markets Authority
Ban Incoming Premium Text Messsages
Ban all Incoming Premium Rate Text Messages.
Why is this important?
I have recently been the victim of an Incoming Premium Rate Text Message scam. Fortunately TalkTalk, my Mobile Phone Provider eMailed me to warn me I had gone over my monthly allowance, and this is how I learned that I was being charged £4.50 for each one of these messages I had received. I had not knowingly subscribed to this.
After doing some research I found that this scam is by no means an uncommon incident & is growing all the time. It even seems to have an authority (PhonePayPlus) which is supposed to monitor it. This, in itself, is ridiculous. It is clearly a way of making money under false pretences.
All Premium Rate Text Messages are a rip off, but at least when making outgoing ones at least the customer is making the concious decision to throw their money away. These, however, are INCOMING.
Most of all I was amazed to learn that this way of covertly taking money by deception is actually legal. This, to anyone with any sense of common decency can see this to be morally outrageous.
Incoming Premium Rate Text Messages are theft, plain and simple, making use of some loophole in the law, targeting the most vulnerable. This loophole needs closing.
