If you reply STOP to an SMS marketing message, but the company continues to spam you and they are a member of WASPA, you should lay a complaint.<\/p>\n
Speaking at a media event in Johannesburg, the industry association said it investigates complaints like these and sanctions companies who are found to be in violation of its code of conduct.<\/p>\n
In April 2018, WASPA levied a fine of R25,000<\/strong><\/a> against Blue Label Data Solutions for continuing to send marketing messages on behalf of Dischem to a user after that user had opted out.<\/p>\n WASPA general manager Ilonka Badenhorst said their code of conduct not only prohibits sending marketing messages after someone has opted out, but operates on an opt-in basis.<\/p>\n Badenhorst said WASPA takes a proactive approach to such matters, and while the Consumer Protection Act has taken an opt-out approach to direct marketing, the Protection of Personal Information Act will change it to an opt-in regime.<\/p>\n This means companies will have to get people\u2019s permission to send them marketing messages.<\/p>\n The WASPA code of conduct already includes this opt-in provision, added\u00a0Badenhorst.<\/p>\n Should a company not be a member of WASPA, however, there are other avenues to investigate.<\/p>\n You can report the spammer to the Direct Marketing Association of South Africa (DMASA), and register on the organisation\u2019s National Opt-out Database<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n However, as with WASPA, if the company is not a member of the DMASA, it is not subject to its rules.<\/p>\n WASPA provides incentives<\/a><\/strong> for companies to join the association, such as a platform to influence matters affecting the industry.<\/p>\n If you are a WASP contracted to a mobile network operator, you must typically be a WASPA member, said the association\u2019s chair James McNab.<\/p>\n An alternative is to use an operator\u2019s WASP platform.<\/p>\n While WASPA won\u2019t have jurisdiction over such operators, the mobile networks will, and they have an incentive to keep rogue WASPs off their platforms to keep clients happy.<\/p>\n If a spammer is not a WASP and reporting them to your mobile network operator yields no results, you can lodge a complaint with the National Consumer Commission<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n A smartphone application such as\u00a0Truecaller<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>can also be used to screen and block spammers.<\/p>\n Truecaller offers anti-spam features for calls and SMS, and also has its own SMS messaging and phone dialler applications.<\/p>\n If the messages do not stop, you must lay a complaint, said WASPA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":155803,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[35,37320,5804,22787],"class_list":["post-271299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cellular","tag-headline","tag-ilonka-badenhorst","tag-sms-spam","tag-wireless-application-service-providers-association-waspa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271299"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271299"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":271475,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271299\/revisions\/271475"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}National opt-out registry<\/h3>\n
Block spam on your phone<\/h3>\n
Now read: The reason Dischem continued to send SMS spam to a user who had replied STOP<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"