Data cop slap for Brit text pests The two owners of a rogue marketing firm have to cough up £440,000 for spamming UK mobiles with millions of texts over the last three years. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) made its first use of new powers to levy heavy fines for serious breaches of the UK's Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) …
that they received a jail term. And that every couple of hours, day and night, someone would hammer on the cell door and slip a note underneath it; said note being along the lines of "Been buttf***ed in the shower? Want to get even? Call Slasher McGee, block E cell 37, for a truly professional service."
Assuming that the carriers actually care (or are encouraged to care by the regulators), the first step in shutting down SMS spam would be to gather statistics.
The carriers can't seem to stop the spam at the source, but 7726 allows them to automate the process of identifying the sending number and enables them to block it almost immediately (simple script -- if you get 10 complaints on the same number to 7726 inside of 10 minutes, block the number).
It may not end the problem, but at least it makes life a bit more difficult for the spammers (they need to buy more SIMs, as they're being blocked more quickly) and collects evidence (we have all these compaints of spam from this number, and here we have a SIM registered to that number, perhaps you'd like to explain?)
What is worse is getting a new phone+number and discover that the number was previously used by someone who (a) appears never to tell their friends that their number has changed, (b) appears to have a fairly "relaxed" attitude to paying bills. Result of (a) are series of texts etc saying "hi <name>, we are you?" "are you going out tonight" etc and even the more ironic "hi, this is my new phone number". While (b) resulted in a series of calls from utility companies, landlords and eventually (I assume - they don't actually say who they are) debt collectors asking to speak to the previous owner of the number ... mostly when told that person they want hasn't had this number of now 3 years they aplogies and claim to remove number from their list. Anyway, 3 years after I got my number I'm still getting occassional calls from people trying to contact the person who used to have it.
The woman who used to own our house (3.5 years ago) was evidently some kind of contractor. She also has the same name as my wife.
I still get people ringing up asking to speak to her for work purposes. Obviously due to the name confusion I tend to get sucked into these calls until I realise its evidently for the old owner.
What kind of idiot doesn't pass on their new number to clients/potential employers.
Wish I'd cancelled the line and ordered a new number.
So, the networks allow tens of thousands of texts to be sent from unregistered sims? Is it really beyond their capability to prevent this, or maybe limit the number that can be sent to weed out the obvious misuse?
It seems all along the chain, from networks to claim companies, to solicitors, to the spammers, everyone wants to grab some money, and sod the ethics, legality or the huge nuisance caused.
The number of times I've had them call up and when I've said "Could you give me the name of your company, this line is registered with TPS" and I've gotten the response of "Ah but this is just a survey." maybe they could do a second "No Surveys" register.
Either that or I'm buying a rape whistle to blow down the phone at full force.
I'm on the 3 network, I sent it to 7726 (without the 3 at the start) and it worked fine. Also, I received a thank you text requesting I reply with the spammers original number so they can look it up. Doing so I received a follow up text from 3 saying it appeared to originate from a shortcode and to try replying STOP ALL.
Not sure if it will every be taken any further, but fingers crossed.
Hmm - interesting. It's the exact same process on the AT&T network here in the US. I wonder if they're all using the same 7726 software? Typing in the sending number is a pain, but I try to remember I'm helping to build a database to shut down these b@stards.
Maybe there is hope after all. It seems to be working here, I haven't gotten SMS spam for a while now. It does seem to come in bursts for several months, then dies out. I'm currently getting robocalls offering me [lower interest rates, free alarm systems, or dead air!)
> Hanging to good for them?
If I had my way, I'd hang, draw, (but not quarter) them, then disembowel, skin them alive, half-drown them in a barrel of brine, and then really torture them.
Or, like Tantalus, subject them to torture, for about 15mins sessions, with 5 min breaks to read some email. At about 2-5 day intervals (changes each time), send them a "get-out-of-jail-card". However, it is only valid for 45 minutes, and they receive ~1000 spams a day. Filters and searching are not allowed.
Some cold callers you can have fun with. Espcially the ones who claim to have found a virus on your PC.
Had one on the line while he desperately tried to aid me to connect my Commodore 64 to the internet to "clear the viruses". Well he did ask me to start up my computer and it was the one nearest! How would I know? :-)
Maybe a UKer can tell me what's up with this - I'm in the US, and I can count the number of spam texts I've had on one hand, in 10+ years of using a cell. Same for my wife. And nobody I know - and I've asked - has had very many, if any at all.
Is there some kind of regulatory hole that's allowing this stuff in the UK while it's not here? Are providers acting differently here, or what? It's really odd.
A large part of it is the greater prevalence of premium rate numbers - one comment already mentions the little trick of "reply STOP to stop these texts", where sending them a reply costs you £1.50, almost all of that going to the spammer.
I don't get *many* - a few weeks since my last one I think - but they are irritating. It's the regular landline spam that really bugs me, though, mostly because it's much more intrusive than a text. Despite being TPS registered, I get random tools trying to peddle their blasted solar panels, insisting that because it's government-subsidised they are exempt from the TPS prohibition on marketing calls...
A ban on phone ownership/use in the first instance, with a stiff jail sentence for violations or repeat offenders, would fix it. The VoIP "virus" scammers might be beyond range of the court, but disconnecting the offending source networks from the UK phone networks should make them much more pro-active about disconnecting the scammers from their network instead.
In the USA you have the TCPA and the right of private action, with the spammer AND the advertiser being jointly culpable.
It didn't take many court cases to make a point. Some asswipe small claims judges might quibble about cost shifted fax advertising(*), but with US customers paying to _receive_ SMS texts, $1500 per pop adds up very quickly. ($500, plus treble damages because it's willful). Having the FCC pile on top at $11k per instance made it even less economic.
(*) A few have refused to hear cases or find for the plaintiff. When kicked upstairs, it's always been kicked back down with very clear instructions.
I would have thought more punitive action might be a good idea, with fines for the phone companies that allow such scum to proliferate once a number opf complaints are made against a particular number. That might make them take greater steps to prevent or nip in the bud any persistent offenders. If they wish to, they could even require authentic phone calls to be made from numbers that are barred from having their numbers withheld to the recipients, who are free to take action to reclaim money for time wasted from such firms. I would also like the scum who wriggle out of the TPS service by claiming they are "doing a survey" to be hammered by making such surveys illegal unless they have consulted and been bound by an authentic ethical committee similar to those who monitor medical or other social science research, with approval required for each survey, and with an expectation that the results of any "survey" be published at the same standard as any research done by others.
I have no feelings about ignoringf those kids that accost me on the street these days asking me to give to charity.
I know they are just aching to find decent jobs and that they are being made slaves by the people who mine into charitable causes. And that even if most of it goes to managing directors, overheads and evil b\stards in governments I don't know about, some of it gets through...
I just don't care much.
OK, if they really sent out up to 840k messages per day (which seems a bit high to me), let's assume they did on average 100k messages per day and operated this for, say, one year, roughly 200 days (without the weekends and such). That makes some 20 million illegal text messages. A fine of 440k makes the steep price of £0,000022 per message. This is probably less than 1% of what they paid their operator.
So that's what "new powers to levy heavy fines" means. That will teach them. They will probably never do this again.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
