SMS spam battle

Have you received SMS or MMS spam from your cellular provider?

  • Yes

    Votes: 48 92.3%

  • No

    Votes: 4 7.7%
  • Total voters
    52
Any customers who are aggrieved by any of Vodacom’s conduct can approach ICASA as the first port of call
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Vodacom know very well this would be a totally futile exercise and be of no help to the consumer.
 
And for those of you attempting to partake in the new Vodacom WIN promotion. Make sure you read the T&C. Sending your promotion code opts you in for future communications from Vodacom. So if after a lot of swearing and sending "out" in every case combination you can think of you and you got removed from the Vodacom23 and News4U lists, the WIN promotion might just be your return ticket to a world of spam.

36. Vodacom collects personal information in order to conduct the campaign and may, for this purpose, disclose such information to third parties, including but not limited to agents, contractors, service providers, prize suppliers and, as required, to South African regulatory authorities. Entry is conditional on providing this information. Vodacom may, for an indefinite period, unless otherwise advised, use the information for promotional, marketing, publicity, research and profiling purposes, including sending electronic messages or telephoning the entrant. Participants should direct any request to access, update or correct information to Vodacom. All entries become the property of Vodacom. See Vodacom’s Privacy Policy for details.
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Agreed on Vodacom

They are NOT compliant with the ECT act or DMASA's code of conduct

I have been battling them since mid 2008 re:SMS spam.
There is no evidence that they ever look at DMASA's opt-out list.
Their internal opt-out list only works for CURRENT promotions- in other words you can opt out all you want at DMASA and Vodacom, but come Easter promotion, World Cup promotion, Spring promotion, etc, you need to opt out again.
 
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Visser says that due to the relationship Vodacom holds with its customers, it sends SMS and MMS messages to them in accordance with the ECTA, and includes an opt-out option in all its messages.
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LIES!!!

I replied STOP to several messages received from them after turning my MSISDN back on after 6 months of it being switched off (WesBank placed me on 4 different marketing lists without my permission so I turned the phone off to stop the constant assault and battery on my sanity)

No action was taken by Vodacom, and no opt-out instructions were provided in their SMS and MMS spam.

It took several e-mail complaints to get them to finally stop spamming me.

It feels good to be SPAM free.
 
n00beriser,
Enjoy it but it's temporary. You are only opted out of current campaigns, not future ones. I have SUCCESSFULLY opted out of ALL marketing from Vodacom 11 times already. When a new promotion starts, you are opted into it.l
 
Even though WSPA does a great job from people sms spamming (several times I had to have them remove my number seeing as there is no opt out message), I consistently get SMS/MMS spam from my provider. With no way to opt-out. On my contract theirs a specific box you can tick or leave open that says "contact me with promotional blabalablabla" which I always leave unticked. So I guess I could sue them for breach of contract...

What I don't get though is how the hell Virgin/Cell C/Vodacom get my number to try and pawn their **** on me when my details are only known to my bank and MTN?

Selling info rocks apparently
 
I mailed the DMASA asking them what the legality of their business in and reference to the law. They do not reply.
So what is the legality of DMASA and WASPA? From what I see there is none. If anyone has reference as to true legality of these then please post so. ICASA has clout, not that they use it... The big networks know this.

In any legal system, an association that has no legal binding should be listened to with caution.
 
Jupiter909 said:
I mailed the DMASA asking them what the legality of their business in and reference to the law. They do not reply.
So what is the legality of DMASA and WASPA? From what I see there is none. If anyone has reference as to true legality of these then please post so. ICASA has clout, not that they use it... The big networks know this.

In any legal system, an association that has no legal binding should be listened to with caution.
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They are not the same and do not have the same role in the industry.

The role of WASPA is to ensure that all its members adhere to the WASPA Code of Conduct. This is heavily influenced by network requirements (each has its own). Its role is to warn members if they transgress and to even fine them.

DMASA on the other hand is a centralised database of consumer details. Its a cost effective way for DMASA members to share contacts (with over 100 members) and to manage unsubscription queries.


EDIT: To sum it up, a WASP member may not share contacts with other WASP members (or anyone else for that fact), while DMASA is about shareing is careing - so if FNB gets my number then so does all the other 100+ DMASA members (and the right to spam me).
 
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so i go to checkers yesterday to rica a payg number which i got from mtn but never used.
specifically to devote the number to spam and non-trusted entities.
(i won't derail this thread with the pointlessness of my rica experience)
i put the sim in the phone at 6pm and got woken up at 1am with 4 sms's from mtn welcoming me and sending me various operator settings.
oh, the irony.
 
I'm watching the MSS/MMS'es I receive very carefully.

Only recently I gave my cellphone number out. So when I get spam, I'll know who to blame.
 
Why is reporting SMS spam so difficult??

As far as I can see you have to fill in this lenghty form:
http://www.waspa.org.za/code/complaint.shtml

And on top of that, you have to quote which part of the"Code of Conduct" (a 10 000 word document!!!!!!) was breached!!
http://www.waspa.org.za/code/codeconduct.shtml

Seriously, WTF?

Gmail, you click on "report spam" it then dissappears and you never see it again... overseas you forward spam messages to a specific number, I presume that works in a similar way...
 
You can always blame WesBank/FNB - biggest offenders of number sharing IMHO
 
cookiemonster said:
Why is reporting SMS spam so difficult??

As far as I can see you have to fill in this lenghty form:
http://www.waspa.org.za/code/complaint.shtml

And on top of that, you have to quote which part of the"Code of Conduct" (a 10 000 word document!!!!!!) was breached!!
http://www.waspa.org.za/code/codeconduct.shtml
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Most of the info required in the form is optional. WASPA simply needs enough info so that it can identify which WASP was involved (if any). With more information, there is a better chance of the WASP being sanctioned though.

The section in the code dealing with spam is not lengthy at all. See section 5 on http://www.waspa.org.za/code/codeconduct.shtml , more specifically section 5.2.1:

5.2.1. Any commercial message is considered unsolicited (and hence spam) unless:
the recipient has requested the message;
the message recipient has a direct and recent (within the last six months) prior commercial relationship with the message originator and would reasonably expect to receive marketing communications from the originator; or
the organisation supplying the originator with the recipient’s contact information has the recipient’s explicit consent to do so.

The WASPA code is more strict than the ECT act, and does not allow "cold calling".
 
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