First published: 17th December 2009
Hong Kong's Telecommunications Regulator, OFTA, has agreed voluntary guidelines to control misleading charged SMSs with the five main telecom companies: CSL, SmarTone, 3, PCCW and Peoples. The move follows a damning report by the Consumer Council about 470 complaints it had received from January to November this year. Typical scams offered users a "free" service ("friend-seeking", "IQ test" or a "lucky draw") with concealed conditions - the users were subscribing to expensive SMSs charged to their phone-bill. One People's customer reported being charged HK$50 per message, and, when he refused the bill totalling HK$2000, he received a lawyer's letter and had his mobile service stopped.
Action on misleading messages has been slow, telecoms companies typically respond that subscribers should discuss it with the content providers directly, a PCCW representative said that it provided a platform for communication between content providers and users; and OFTA's initial reaction was that they didn't fall within its purview. However, the Consumer Council report, and subsequent pledge by the Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Rita Lau Ng Wai-lan to crack down on unscrupulous practices led to the sudden drafting of the voluntary code.
The code includes four points:
- Messages to include notice they are chargeable, and when the charges are invoked;
- Providing clear information about charges;
- Clear, easy to understand and use arrangements for unsubscribing or deregistering;
- Disputes over content services must not affect normal mobile phone services.
However, Samson Tam Wai-ho, LegCo member for the IT functional constituency, doubted that a voluntary code would be effective.
The misleading offers of services are often made online, and Hong Kong is not the only place where these scams operate. Michael Arrington has written about the lead-generation business model of application developers on social networks and the social gaming ecosystem of hell they form with advertisers. The offers sound eerily familiar: "IQ tests" and hidden, expensive subscriptions.