SMS quiz subscriptions targeted

I'd prefer that they should be not allowed to bill/deduct money through your cellphone accounts at all. My wife recently got harassed by these SMS scams and its a huge concern as to how easy one can be subscribed to these services. As it is currently, its very open to abuse.

Simply enter your (or anyone's) cel number in a facebook quiz application and you've successfully subscribed yourself to a R50pm service.
 
RoosTa said:
I'd prefer that they should be not allowed to bill/deduct money through your cellphone accounts at all. My wife recently got harassed by these SMS scams and its a huge concern as to how easy one can be subscribed to these services. As it is currently, its very open to abuse.

Simply enter your (or anyone's) cel number in a facebook quiz application and you've successfully subscribed yourself to a R50pm service.
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No WASP (affiliated member or not) may randomly bill a number. Sites that request your number and then bill without confirmation procedures can be contested and should. Such sites give the industry a rotten name.

One of the big issues is WAP billing where you browse a site on your phone (as the network passes your MSISDN onto the WASP) and then through confirmation process of "click here" and "are you sure" you will then get billed to receive your WAP or mobile content. This is legit as this is once off billing - user initiated each time.
 
Your MTN/Vodacom account is being used as a CREDIT BANK ACCOUNT , yet MTN/Vodacom do not want to take responsibility for illegal/unlawful money's being deducted from this account?

Lets take Visa/Mastercard . If someone took my Visa number and bought/subscribed me to a service i did not consent to [i.e. i did not sign and without using my card] then Visa/Mastercard are quite ruthless with this, THEY sort this out. I don't go to the offending company and ask my money back, THEY do, in fact they don't even ask they just -take- it back! (especially if it's proven the company taking the money did not gain official and legal consent ).

This why there's so many numbers and "verifications" when doing anything with your credit card [CVV / Verfied by Visa etc] , to ensure both sides know what they're getting into. To protect you and protect the company being paid [nothing like visa coming to reverse your sales because the cards were stolen and/or you did not verify the owner properly].

Why do i sense a shirk of responsibility going on here? Either all services need to go via credit cards so that the credit companies who actually do sort these things out AND protect you properly from these things CAN , or the operators need to ensure proper procedures are in place to not only PREVENT unlawful deductions, but also COUNTERING when it does happen...just like Visa/Mastercard is doing.
 
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Understand your point diabolus, but the credit card companies first investigate a claim and if the merchant has sufficient evidence that the purchase was legal then the consumer is held liable, and vice-versa (experienced many of these queries during my retail years).

Same applies to billing of handsets with subscription services - proof of registration and procedures being followed.

I find a lot of consumers do not understand how to unsubscribe from services they subscribed too. We ensure our clients are WASPA compliant and do check them regualy. Just some people SMS stop to the wrong numbers.


But yes, its a pity the networks do not do more to follow up at their level. I'm the only person in the industry to have an application deployed at all 3 networks that allow them to quickly assist with unsubscribing consumers from our clients.

Took me 1 week to write the app as I had to do it in-between other work.

I hope soon that other WASP members also need to have the same application.
 
diabolus said:
Why do i sense a shirk of responsibility going on here? Either all services need to go via credit cards so that the credit companies who actually do sort these things out AND protect you properly from these things CAN , or the operators need to ensure proper procedures are in place to not only PREVENT unlawful deductions, but also COUNTERING when it does happen...just like Visa/Mastercard is doing.
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You sense that because it's true. Greedy corporates will milk the consumer for as much as is possible. Unless some regulatory body institutes punitive measures as in R10,000 fine per incident, or R1,000,000 fine per day such operations are allowed to continue - you won't see change. It has to cost corporates more to continue to harm the consumer - that is their only drive for change.

For credit card transactions the only way to prove that you made the transaction is if you've signed the receipt in person OR if goods were shipped to your address and you signed for them OR if the shop in question has some additional proof - eg a copy of your ID card or fax of your credit card.
 
cbrunsdonza said:
One of the big issues is WAP billing where you browse a site on your phone (as the network passes your MSISDN onto the WASP) and then through confirmation process of "click here" and "are you sure" you will then get billed to receive your WAP or mobile content. This is legit as this is once off billing - user initiated each time.
Click to expand...

Web sites should not be able to identify your phone without you typing in the number and confirming it in a different way. (as on PC) It is a serious invasion of privacy if they can.
 
i.e. Avoid WAP browsing like the plague until this is sorted out.

What I fail to understand is:

How do you know that the service you are "talking to" is a member of this oh so glorious WASPA?
Do the WASPA members include a "we are members of WASPA" in all their communications?

i.e. How do we know it's "safe"?
 
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I think mtn or vadacom must send you a message to allow yes/no for some one to add to your bill. I also think we need a no private numbers and a sms spam block service so we can block spamers because the church is harrasing me to come to events.
 
MoHaG said:
Web sites should not be able to identify your phone without you typing in the number and confirming it in a different way. (as on PC) It is a serious invasion of privacy if they can.
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Only for WAP sites, and this still needs to be negotiated with the network to get the users MSISDN. So not anybody can have access to this information.
 
davemc said:
i.e. Avoid WAP browsing like the plague until this is sorted out.

What I fail to understand is:

How do you know that the service you are "talking to" is a member of this oh so glorious WASPA?
Do the WASPA members include a "we are members of WASPA" in all their communications?

i.e. How do we know it's "safe"?
Click to expand...

Only WASP members have access to the ZA billing platforms. What does happen is a 3rd party will make use of the WASP member (aggregation WASP), if they are not registered then the WASP member is held liable.

I work for an aggregation WASP and we act as a billing point for our clients. All our clients have to WASP members and also have to adhere to stringent testing by Vodacom before they can go live.

Controlled cellphone billing has lots of opportunities, but you only need one incident to tarnish the industry. Can say its way better than it was 3 years ago when I got into the industry.
 
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