The Tribunal of 19 January 2012 considered two cases, one in relation to an online beauty pageant called ‘Miss Teen Queen UK’, and another in relation to an app that was available on the Android Marketplace. Both cases were adjudicated on under the Code of Practice (Eleventh Edition, Amended April 2008). Read on for more details, clicking on the links for an extended summary:

In the first case, the service was an online beauty pageant called ‘Miss Teen Queen UK’. Each month, 100 girls who had entered as contestants were selected to have their profile and photo placed on the website for a public vote. The public could vote by premium rate shortcode or 090 number.

PhonepayPlus received one complaint from a mother of two girls aged 11 and 12 who had between them incurred mobile phone bills of £2,548 by texting multiple votes for a contestant who had encouraged them to do so through Facebook. The complainant claimed her daughters had not been informed of the cost of sending the texts.

The Tribunal found that the Information Provider, Captive Interactive Systems Limited, was responsible for the Facebook promotions and that the service was a ‘Children’s service’.  The Tribunal upheld breaches under the Code of Practice (Eleventh Edition, Amended April 2008) relating to: the required contact details not being clearly stated; promotions not containing pricing information or stating that the bill-payer’s permission was needed before engaging in the service; the service and its associated promotional material being likely to result in harm to children; and the service and its promotional material encouraged repeat use (multiple voting) by all ages, including children. 

The Tribunal imposed the following sanctions: a formal reprimand, a fine of £20,000 and an order for refunds to be paid to users.

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In the second case, the Executive had monitored an app which was free to download and offered consumers the chance to watch TV or videos on their mobile handsets by purchasing credits or subscriptions at various prices, ranging from 50p to £10 (paid for by receiving charged SMS texts from the service).

When monitoring the service, the Executive found that after buying a 14-day £1.50 subscription to access a TV channel, the message appearing on the handset screen confirmed that the purchase had been successful. However, the app then looped back to the previous screen offering the choice of the TV channel again, and did not allow the user to access the service content. A message was then sent to the handset stating “Error with user!” incurring a further charge of £1.50.

The Tribunal found that under the Code of Practice (Eleventh Edition, Amended April 2008) the Information Provider, txtNation Limited, had breached the Code by not taking reasonable steps to ensure that the service was of adequate technical quality. The Tribunal also upheld breaches relating to: the error message being misleading because users were led to believe that they were to blame for the fault with the service, when in fact this was not the case; and no contact information being provided within the service’s promotional material.

The Tribunal imposed the following sanctions: a formal reprimand and a fine of £4,000. The Tribunal further commented that it expected refunds to be paid to claimants.

To view the full adjudications, please search by date or case number on the PhonepayPlus adjudications database.