Stop Spam Texts Discussion Area

Typo22

Gary_Bury wrote: »

Hi Heinz,
Your experience is exactly why myself and .... others .... have been posting on this thread.

If the text message came from a registered 5 digit shortcode then absolutely do send STOP.

.... and maybe myself or someone else from the industry can find out more information

And why should myself [sic], on a PAYG scheme, have to pay to STOP numerous text messages that myself [sic] didn't ask for in the first place? Ambulance chasers, in my case - I got the first one while I was lying in A&E!! And Vermin Mobile were no help either.

PS - Sorry, reflexive pronoun abuse is a pet peeve. You wouldn't say "myself can find out" so why....? Anyway, let's get back to the point.

poppy10_2

Intasun32 wrote: »

@Gary Bury,

Good post, shame you spoilt it by calling us idiots!

He didn't call you idiots, that was part of the message he quoted

EDIT: Seems like the quote system is a bit messed up today

crazyguy

To Mobile Proffesional and Gary Bury,

I have spent a fair amount of time finding out as much as I can about the Company behind these, it seems from my conversations with different bodies that are in place to protect the public are either under staffed or unsure of certain regulations that are in place at the moment, now the sms in question for accident compensation claims do come in a few varients, different amounts and sometimes worded completely different but we can all see these sms are targeting the public for a fairly substantial size organisation which has oviously consented to the public being plagued with the messages.

You say you feel that these people/scammers are affecting your industry, let me tell you that I have had many forms of electronic communications sent to myself and stopping these marketing Company's can be extremely difficult to say the least, yes some will work with you and are nothing more than appologetic and do whatever it takes to resolve the issues, But being as I am registered on the TPS explain to me why the vast majority of all the sms and emails I receive on a frequent basis have not even bothered to check the TPS records before sending me anything after all if you are a legite company you would not want complaints and possible fines landing on your doorstep, and yes the TPS is for unwanted sms as well as phone calls.

Now from my understanding it is after all just a disc that you run along side your data base disc and it picks out the TPS registered numbers and does not send them any form of communication, so if you are saying that its a handfull of company's that are ruining your reputation well i am afraid that the vast majority of all marketing firms do that for themselves.

Also when you ask a company like yours to be suppressed on there data base and put on a do not contact list it seems very strange that a short space of time later you can be back on the marketing list and or your data is then sold on despite the previous request.

So being frank with you both the business you work in does tend to have a very lapse attitude and a flagrant disregaurd to the UK laws and regulations.

Intasun32

poppy10 wrote: »

He didn't call you idiots, that was part of the message he quoted

EDIT: Seems like the quote system is a bit messed up today

@Poppy,

On a second look at the post you are correct, there seemed to have been a problem with the 'Quote' set up making it look part of the reply.

Apologies to @Gary Bull, I will edit the post.

There seems to be a conflict with the posts on this thread. It has been set up to include scams such as unsolicited reverse bill texts and unsolicited marketing texts, both very different. One thieving money from our account, the other very annoying, although it is not unknown for an unsolicited marketing text to have a link which would subscribe you to a download web site!

Each is covered by a different section of the 'law', if you could call it that.

The unsolicited marketing texts sent by long mobile number will come under regulations of the Information Commisioners Office, while a scam or unsolicited marketing text sent by short code would be regulated by Phone Pay Plus. Neither give the consumer any protection against the unsolicited, unwanted and sometimes expensive text.

@Crazyguy,

The series of mobile numbers for this message I researched were all from Vodafone, who when I contacted them, were not interested in how their network was being used. From what you have discovered they have now moved on to o2.

Another example of unsolicited marketing texts, not unlike this one:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2681295
:beer:

crazyguy

Intasun32,

To find out the network provider of any number you need this website : http://www.numberingplans.com/?page=analysis&sub=phonenr

This locates the area and phone provider.

These guys that do this are being made out to be some small set up maybe in someones front room or something, but the sheer scale of the sms being sent out does tends to say different and from my research together with speaking to a few other people suggests it is being bank rolled by a key accident claims Company, I am very close to finding out who it is and will be forwarding all my findings onto the relivent Governing Bodies, and the ICO have now increased the actual fine to a lovely £500.0000, I am looking forward to seeing justice provail here.

Yolina

crazyguy wrote: »

Intasun32,

To find out the network provider of any number you need this website : http://www.numberingplans.com/?page=analysis&sub=phonenr

This locates the area and phone provider.

Except that it only picks up the network the number was originally issued on, not a network it's been ported to and currently used on... my number comes up as "Everything Everywhere" because I was with them maybe 14 years ago (when they were One2One) when I got my first mobile. Since then, I've changed network quite a few times.

Granted, the chances are that the spammers probably wouldn't bother to port their number, they'd just get a new payg on a different network, but still, you can't be 100% sure of what network is being used.

only_mee

crazyguy wrote: »

Intasun32,

To find out the network provider of any number you need this website : http://www.numberingplans.com/?page=analysis&sub=phonenr

This locates the area and phone provider.

That says my number is from vadafone, but it isn't i have been with 02 all the time.

Gary_Bury

Wow, looks like I've dipped my toe into some very deep water.

Apologies about the idiot thing, I think it's because I'm a newbie and can't post links. There was a link in the post I was replying to, so something went wrong.

@crazyguy, looks like you are on the right track and close to finding them, and I don't think I'll be able to offer anything you don't already know. I'm trying to understand where the commercial gain is to the spammer when they don't contact you even if you respond positively? It's possible that when they do a large broadcast it will jam the entire mobile cell, in which case your response (positive or negative) may not get back to them. I guess if the spammer is paid to broadcast the SMS rather than for leads generated they probably don't care about you responding or not.

Did you do any research into the Sim Farm hardware, if nothing else it's interesting to see how readily available it is (I can't post links but have a look at routesms.com/products/Sim-Farm-pro.asp).

There seems to be some general misunderstanding of PhonepayPlus (PPP) across the various threads. PPP only regulate premium rate services i.e. those that charge you somewhere between 25p and £10 to receive text messages. Premium rate texts are always sent from short-codes. But when you receive texts from short-codes that don't cost you to receive (i.e. general marketing blurb) then it's outside of the scope of PPP's regulation. Regardless, although PPP have the power to shut down a premium rate service their fines are completely insufficient to deter those willing to flout the rules.

crazyguy

Yolina wrote: »

Except that it only picks up the network the number was originally issued on, not a network it's been ported to and currently used on... my number comes up as "Everything Everywhere" because I was with them maybe 14 years ago (when they were One2One) when I got my first mobile. Since then, I've changed network quite a few times.

Granted, the chances are that the spammers probably wouldn't bother to port their number, they'd just get a new payg on a different network, but still, you can't be 100% sure of what network is being used.

Yolina,

I understand what you are saying and yes you are correct about personal mobile phone numbers, but the simple case here is that the sims used are just pay and go, either sourced for free or at a little expense and then topped up with maybe £10-£20.00 and used on the O2 Network under the unlimited text plan service, O2 state a fair usage policy under this and I was told that if they see a sim card sending out a certain amount of sms in a short period of time they then cut it off completely. they also state that they cannot locate the area where the sim is being used, thats rubbish as all they need to do is a triangular search at there end and they can locate a sim card to within 20 metres.

These are 100% pay and go sims so are pretty much each and every sms message you receive from any finance offers to your mobile sent from a UK based sim are failing to adhere to UK Laws and Regulations, if its sent from outside the UK then little can be done, but the industry as a whole is so lapse and do not care what they do as they are going unpunished.

I think that anyone who receives any sms should check on that link I posted and then complain to that Network Provider, the more that complain to them should see a change to the Law and perhaps more Companys closed down.

crazyguy

Gary, I looked at the website and yes I agree these set ups can be done very cheeply and as to the commercial gain as in my case I am at a complete loss.

There does seem to be a lot of conflicting things being said on different threads on here.

Yes PPP cannot regulate the free sms messages, but with a number of Laws being broke here it seems to me that not one single Governing Bodie will take full responsabily and punish these people properly all it will take is one good case and the ICO maximum fine to be implemented and I bet that would deter any future scammers out there from doing the same thing.

I still think it is down to the individual phone networks to do more and help solve the issue.