PHONEPAYPLUS MOBILE REVIEW - ONE YEAR ON

Premium Rate Regulator PhonepayPlus, the phone-paid services regulator, today announces that complaint figures concerning mobile services are down by half one year on from the introduction of new rules that came about following its 2008 Mobile Review. The new regulation was introduced in response to a worrying rise in consumer complaints regarding premium rate mobile services which, on average, account for some 90% of all calls to PhonepayPlus’ Contact Centre.

PhonepayPlus is releasing these figures at the industry launch of its Annual Report in London today, where it will also announce that its Chairman, Sir Alistair Graham, has accepted an invitation to stay in post for a further three years.

PhonepayPlus’ complaint figures show that:

• Total complaints regarding Premium Rate mobile services are down 57% from June 2008 compared to May 2009 (2,125 vs 919)
• Consumer complaints regarding mobile subscription services have almost halved since the introduction of the new rules (1,207 vs 651)
• Consumer complaints about unsolicited text messages are down by 85% from the first half of 2008/9 compared to the second half (1,538 vs 230)

Commenting, PhonepayPlus Chief Executive, Paul Whiteing, said: “These results show that we are heading in the right direction and sorting the good from the bad in mobile services. It is early days, and we are still analysing the various impacts on our complaint numbers, but these are an encouraging set of results that appear to demonstrate the effectiveness of the new rules, as supported by responsible providers in the sector. 

He continued: “However we are not complacent and remain vigilant for any new opportunistic activity that may result in consumer harm. This risk is especially acute since, with a country in the midst of recession, we expect the PRS industry to be attractive to unscrupulous operators looking for ways to make a fast profit. We remain committed to being proactive in preventing non-compliant services from making it to market.”

Mobile Review: the rules

PhonepayPlus’ Mobile Review set out new rules for the mobile phone-paid services sector. It stated that services could not be advertised as free unless they were free from any associated charges; set new rules around trading of third party marketing lists; and introduced a prior permissions scheme for Premium SMS subscription services costing upwards of £4.50 in any given week. The Review also reinforced PhonepayPlus’ zero tolerance of any failure of the ‘STOP’ command for opting out of receiving unwanted contact by text message.

Are you open minded enough to provide XXX Sex Chat to guys in the UK? If you are we can provide you with an 0909 Premium Rate Line AND provide you with the calls to earn big £££’s from each minute of calls you receive.

Meaning that if you put in the hours you can generate THOUSANDS OF POUNDS per month working part of full time. This is NO scam there is no setup charge, rentals, hidden charges or any other crap this is a legitamate oppertunity for those who enjoy chatting dirty on the phone to earn whilst doing so.

For details simply email: richard@phonenumbers4u.com

Premium Rate Regulator PhonePayPlus has annouced the first steps on reimburising users who paid £7200 for permission to run their own live services will be seing a refund soon.

The Trustees are pleased to announce that they have resolved to commence the winding up of the Fund and that the effective date of such commencement is Friday 22 May 2009 (the “Cut-Off Date”).  All contributors eligible as at the Cut-Off Date will be entitled to participate in the distribution of monies presently held in the Fund. We will be updating our records by undertaking a final search, effective as at the Cut-Off Date, to determine the list of eligible contributors. 

Following this, we will be writing to all eligible Contributors to confirm details of the winding up process and thus to make a start on the distribution of monies.  Our latest estimate is that there will be a maximum of 75 eligible contributors to the Premium Rate Services fund entitled to share in about £540,000 giving approximately £7,200 available to each eligible contributor. There were originally 96 contributors but a number of them have ceased to exist and a number of them are individuals who we are currently tracing as they have ceased to provide services, but have not notified the Trustees. Please note that this amount is not guaranteed but is our estimate. 

However, over the past few months we have been working to resolve a number of legal and technical issues connected to the proposed winding up. The final outcome is that the Trustees consider it reasonable and prudent to retain a certain amount of monies to cover the risks of any contributor seeking to challenge the winding-up and/or the distribution of its monies or otherwise. The Trustees wish to keep to a minimum the amount retained and therefore if all eligible contributors successfully participate then the risk of any challenge is minimized and thus the amount retained can be minimized and a further distribution made in due course.   

Accordingly, the Trustees propose to make an initial distribution of £6,500 to each of the potential 75 eligible contributors with the balance being distributed as and when possible.  All correspondence will be sent, in the case of companies, to the registered office address shown at Companies House or equivalent for foreign companies and, in the case of individuals, to their last known address notified to us. If you wish to send us your current address, then please do by calling: 0870 762 7925 This is a postive move by the Premium Rate Regulator and should give consumers more choice on who they can choose to be their Premium Phone Line Provider.

0845 Numbers are now probably the most popular 08x prefix with businesses in the UK however many businesses fail to see the advantages of them. Telecoms provider Planet Numbers Ltd has been kind enough to outline the huge benefits of adopting the 0845 local rate prefix for your organisation…

0845 numbers are nationally recognised. That means customers know how much it costs to call a 0845 number (2p a min. daytimes and 0.5p a min. at all other times)Therefore the clients will be more inclined to call you rather than your competition. 

An 0845 numbers give an impression of a large company even to a small business solutions. And customers put a lot of trust in larger organisation. It is cheaper to call an 0845 number than an 01 or 02 number. In the current economic climate customers are glad to save money on their phone bill. An 0845 number allows also full use of the Call Manager facilities as Voicemail to Email, Call Queuing, Whisper Service, Virtual Receptionist or just for simple changing number announcement. When your customer dials your 0845 number his call is instantly diverted to whichever phone number you have given. Changing this “destination” landline number is mostly for free.

 

Looking to adopt a Premium Rate Number for your business? With a range of solutions from 121 Adult Chat, Psychic / Tarot Lines, Competition Services and many more solutions run by Premium Phone Numbers and Premium SMS there has never been a better time to profit from premium rate.

With tariffs from 5p to £10.00 you can offer a range of different services at a rate that people are more than happy to pay. To enquire about setting up your own Premium Telephone Lines simply contact us at: info@phonenumbers4u.com or by calling: 0800 634 85 85