Moby Monkey fined £10K for misleading text spam

Strike two

By Tim Richardson • Get more from this author

Posted in Music and Media, 17th October 2002 09:00 GMT

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Moby Monkey - which was slapped with a record £50,000 fine in the summer for sending misleading spam text messages - has been fined again.

This time the Leeds-based company has been hit with a £10,000 fine for running a bogus lottery.

Premium rate watchdog - ICSTIS - received 35 complaints from people who received the spam "Phonolotto" texts, which listed two sets of six numbers – one from the 'daily draw' and one for recipients.

Those who matched four of their numbers from the daily draw were told that they had won a "minimum £1,000 award".

ICSTIS questioned the legality of the lottery and also found that the £1,000 prize on offer turned out to be "lifestyle discount vouchers".

The watchdog also found that the pricing for the £1.50 a minute service was misleading. And those who called the premium-rate line were also kept hanging on for an unnecessarily long period of time, ruled ICSTIS.

In all, ICSTIS highlighted ten areas of concern and as a result barred access to the service and fined Moby Monkey Ltd.

Moby Monkey has also been ordered to let ICSTIS vet all the wordings for its SMS promotions over the next six months.

In August ICSTIS fined Moby Monkey a record £50,000 and barred access to its "£500 Mystery Award" service after receiving more than 200 complaints its "seriously misleading" advances for people to ring a premium rate number and win a £500 mystery prize.

Punters who fell for it found that only discount holiday vouchers, with undisclosed terms and conditions attached, were on offer. ®