Spam Text- Charge to unsubscribe

[Seminole]

I recently received a text from 84433 which is a company called Mediaburst. They seem to be real and respond to emails.

 

The text was marketing some financial service. I googled 84433 and it took me to Mediaburst's website where it said that I could unsubscribe by sending "stop" to the number. I did this and then emailed the company to find out where they got my number from. Unsurprisingly I was told that another company had used their service to send the text. I asked for and was given their details and again, unsurprisingly, this turned out to be a marketing company. I have yet to pursue them to find out who they were acting on behalf of but I intend to do so as I'm fed up with spam texts.

 

What has really annoyed me about this is that I now find that I was charged for the stop message. O2 treat it as a premium text. I don't see why I should have to pay to unsubscribe to a service that I never subscribed to in the first place. The charge was only 10p but if 10,000 recipients of the spam sent a stop message, someone is making £1,000 out of this. I have a couple of questions:

 

1) Does anyone know who is likely to have profited from this i.e. will Mediaburst receive any revenue from the stop message?

 

2) Is there a legal basis for the charge? I don't see where there is a contract between me and anyone other than O2. Of course O2 has offered to refund the charge but I would rather pursue Mediaburst or their client (or their client's client) if possible. I think there is a real point of principle here and I'm spoiling for a fight.

[Seminole]

As an addendum to this here is the text of an email from Mediaburst

 

Hi Paul

 

I can confirm that we make no revenue from the STOP message as it is a standard rate text message.

 

Regards

 

and here is the text of an online chat with O2:

 

Welcome to O2. Someone will be with you soon.

You're through to 'O2 : Arju'

Arju: Hi I'm O2 : Arju. How can I help?

Paul Jemetta: Hi

Paul Jemetta: I had a chat earlier this morning with one of your colleagues (May) and I have another question. Do you have the details of that chat?

Arju: I'll be happy to help you.

Arju: Yes I'm able to view it. Let me go through the chat.

Paul Jemetta: Thanks

Arju: You're welcome.

Paul Jemetta: I have one further question. Is the number 84433 a premium text number and will the company receiving the text receive any revenue from it?

Arju: Let me check about that.

Arju: Thank you for your patience.

Arju: Please help me with your full name and mobile number.

Arju:

Paul Jemetta:

Arju: Thank you.

Arju: It is a premium text number.

Arju: If you send or receive a text message from that number it is charged and it is a revenue for that company.

Arju: The name of the company is Media Burst.

[MARTIN3030]

Hi Paul

As you might know,there has been a lot of work going on to address these spam txts,which has seen consultations between the MOJ/ICO and others.

It is included in the wider investigations that were done in consideration of huge volumes of complaints about cold Telephone calls/spam emails and txts predominantly from CMCs and accident/injury Solicitors.

This led to the ICO being granted extra powers to fine individuals and companies up to £5000,000 fines.

The ICO have a dedicated area on their website for reporting these.

I remember we did see a case where a CAG member sued for time used reading the messages.

Theres also the recent case featured in the press where a businessman sued for cold calling via his phone.

It can be a problem trying to identify who is actually behind the txts but with a little digging its possible.

The team are currently looking for some info in respect of some of the questions here.

 

regards

 

Martin

[Seminole]

Thanks Martin. I'm a bit out of the consumer rights business nowadays and not very up to date.

 

What really bothers me here is that this company to divert the blame to their client but also seems to be profiting from spamming. I want to confirm that they are actually receiving money from the opt out texts and then I will take action to recover it through the county court if necessary.

[MARTIN3030]

Some company info on Mediaburst

 

There are 3 directors who also hold/have held other directorships.

 

Mr Gary Bury 12

Mr Stuart Brown 5

Mr Stuart Thomas Brown 6

 

Gary Bury

Mediaburst Limited

Appointment Date: 08/08/2006

Position: Company Secretary

Company Status: Active

 

 

Address:

BARRINGTON HOUSE

HEYES LANE

ALDERLEY EDGE

SK9 7LA

 

 

Stuart Brown

 

Stuart Brown has 5 company director or secretary appointments.

Short name - Stuart Brown

Director ID : 911325329

Year of Birth: 1966

 

Address

Leescroft

363 London Road

Appleton

Cheshire

WA4 5HP

 

MEDIABURST LIMITED Active

S.C.L. CONSULTANTS LIMITED Active

OLD MEDIABURST HOLDINGS LIMITED Dissolved

XTREME CONTENT LIMITED Dissolved

NORPRINT LABELLING SYSTEMS LIMITED In Receivership

 

 

 

 

 

 

MEDIABURST LIMITED

 

Appointment Date: 08/08/2006

Position: Director

Company Status: Active

 

 

Address:

BARRINGTON HOUSE

HEYES LANE

ALDERLEY EDGE

SK9 7LA

GB

 

S.C.L. CONSULTANTS LIMITED

 

Appointment Date: 01/06/2006

Position: Director

Company Status: Active

 

 

Address:

SUITE 1 GROUND FLOOR

BARRINGTON HOUSE HEYES LANE

ALDERLEY EDGE

SK9 7LA

GB

 

 

It seems Stuart Thomas Brown is Stuart Brown.

 

Stuart Thomas Brown has 6 company director or secretary appointments.

Short name - Stuart Brown

Director ID : 914111431

Year of Birth: 1966

 

Address

Trelawney House Chestergate

Macclesfield

Cheshire

United Kingdom

SK11 6DW

 

 

TEN ALPS COMMUNICATIONS LIMITED Active

MEDIABURST LIMITED Active

S.C.L. CONSULTANTS LIMITED Active

OLD MEDIABURST HOLDINGS LIMITED Dissolved

XTREME CONTENT LIMITED Dissolved

NORPRINT LABELLING SYSTEMS LIMITED In Receivership

 

 

 

 

TEN ALPS COMMUNICATIONS LIMITED

 

Appointment Date: 30/09/2009

Position: Director

Company Status: Active

 

 

Address:

TRELAWNEY HOUSE CHESTERGATE

MACCLESFIELD

CHESHIRE

SK11 6DW

 

 

MEDIABURST LIMITED

Appointment Date: 08/08/2006

Position: Director

Company Status: Active

 

 

Address:

BARRINGTON HOUSE

HEYES LANE

ALDERLEY EDGE

SK9 7LA

[MARTIN3030]

ICO info.They do seem to be saying that there is money involved in these spam txts.

 

http://www.ico.gov.uk/for_the_public/topic_specific_guides/marketing/texts.aspx

[MARTIN3030]

Paul I just stumbled on this http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?p=44650714

 

see post 9 interesting to see Gary Bury saying they do not like spam ?????

 

I also found out that SCL are the parent company of Mediaburst.

[Seminole]

Yep I posted a query on that thread as well earlier today.

 

I've now had an email from Mediaburst's client, Pure360. They are confirming with their client the basis on which the text was sent and they have asked the client to get in touch with me directly as well. Apparently I should hear by 4pm today.

 

I'm prepared to bet that I won't have any previous direct contact with the ultimate client and that they will claim to have bought the details from someone. The purchase and sale of the data could probably be traced until it goes offshore. Call me cynical.

[Surfer01]

Pity that the directors do not supply their mobile numbers as we could all start texting them!

[Seminole]

Apparently the company behind the text message is FlowLeadsMedia.

 

So to summarise I received a spam text message from Mediaburst on behalf of Pure360 on behalf of Flow Leads Media which were presumably acting on behalf of someone else. The text was financial services related whereas Flow Leads Media is clearly another marketing company. And so the chain goes on.

 

Why do I get the feeling that spammers use chains like this to try to make sure that noone can be held accountable for their activities?

[Seminole]

Probably the final update until next Tuesday.

 

I had a telephone call from Flow Leads Media. I have to say it sounded quite professional. They told me that the actual client at the end of this long string of organisations is Debt Masters Direct.

 

Needless to say I've never had any dealings with Debt Masters Direct but they will tell me by Tuesday where they got my details from. No doubt they will have bought them from someone who will have given them all sorts of assurances that it was obtained legally.

 

Debt Masters Direct is an interesting organisation. They're a trading name for Creditfix Ltd according to the Whois lookup for their domain name. The Whois lookup says that they're a UK registered company and helpfully quotes their company registration number. Unfortunately the registration number doesn't exist on the Companies House website and there doesn't seem to be a current company with that name there either. It's possible that it's an Irish company but the company numbers don't match. I'm going to do a little more digging but I know that nominet doesn't take kindly to false registration details and I'll draw this to their attention if need be.

Edited November 2, 2012 by Seminole

[MARTIN3030]

Looks like this is a fairly new company.

 

FLOW LEADS MEDIA LIMITED

Osman Fatani sole director

3 Accommodation Road

London

NW11 8ED

 

 

Appointment Date: 10/08/2012

Position: Director

Company Status: Active

[MARTIN3030]

CREDITFIX LIMITED

 

 

Company Status

 

Converted / Closed

Registration

 

Registration Date:

 

Registration Number: SF001005

 

Type: Converted/Closed

Registered Address

 

AVONLEA

DEMESNE

LUCAN

CO. DUBLIN

[MARTIN3030]

Yes what a tangled web.

 

Demesne Nominees Limited

Company Number: IE155996

Company Type: Private limited with Share Capital

 

Registered Address

Avonlea Demesne

Lucan

Co Dublin

452810

Ireland

 

Trading Address

Edit details

AVONLEA DEMESNE

LUCAN

CO DUBLIN

CO DUBLIN

452810

 

About Demesne Nominees Limited

Demesne Nominees Limited was incorporated on 07 Mar 1990 and is located in Co Dublin. The company's status is active, with a team of 3 directors. Demesne Nominees Limited is split between 2 shareholders. They have no known group companies. As of their last financial statement, they had EUR2 in cash reserves. Their net worth is EUR2, and the value of their shareholders' interest is EUR2.

[fordee]

I recently received a text from 84433 which is a company called Mediaburst. They seem to be real and respond to emails.

 

The text was marketing some financial service. I googled 84433 and it took me to Mediaburst's website where it said that I could unsubscribe by sending "stop" to the number. I did this and then emailed the company to find out where they got my number from. Unsurprisingly I was told that another company had used their service to send the text. I asked for and was given their details and again, unsurprisingly, this turned out to be a marketing company. I have yet to pursue them to find out who they were acting on behalf of but I intend to do so as I'm fed up with spam texts.

 

What has really annoyed me about this is that I now find that I was charged for the stop message. O2 treat it as a premium text. I don't see why I should have to pay to unsubscribe to a service that I never subscribed to in the first place. The charge was only 10p but if 10,000 recipients of the spam sent a stop message, someone is making £1,000 out of this. I have a couple of questions:

 

1) Does anyone know who is likely to have profited from this i.e. will Mediaburst receive any revenue from the stop message?

 

2) Is there a legal basis for the charge? I don't see where there is a contract between me and anyone other than O2. Of course O2 has offered to refund the charge but I would rather pursue Mediaburst or their client (or their client's client) if possible. I think there is a real point of principle here and I'm spoiling for a fight.

 

 

Hi Seminole, My name is Emma Forde and I work for BBC 5live..i'm really interested in finding out more about one of your posts? The administrator for this site (M.G) has also been trying to get in touch with you on my behalf but i think he must have an out of date email for you? Would you be able to give me a call please on 0161 335 6457 or so I can tell you more details. Many thanks

[Seminole]

It's been a week but I've now made some progress with this.

 

Flow Leads Media have provided me with contact details for their data supplier. Allegedly I supplied my details and consented to their sale on the inyourpocket.co.uk website. This is a four page offers website with some out of date offers and without a registration facility. It does have a contact form page on which you can send a message. The privacy page states that they can sell any data you provide to 'carefully selected' third parties.

 

This is complete rubbish. I would not sign up for offers in this way. I would not sign up for anything that permitted the sale of my personal data carte blanche. I had never visited this website until very recently. I don't think anyone would sign up for a service from such a shambles of a website. I have never received any registration confirmation or offers from the website. In short I believe that the owners of the site are telling porkies. I have asked them for full details of the contact that they allege I made.

 

inyourpocket.co.uk is registered to an individual. The email setting out details of the alleged contact was from topnewventures.co.uk which is registered to Top New Ventures Limited and this is registered under the Data Protection Act. Assuming that I don't get a suitable reply to my email, I will complain about them to the ICO but I would be interested to know if there is any legal route under the DPA to make life difficult for them?

 

Mediaburst haven't come back to me and haven't paid my invoice for the cost of opting out of their email service. I'm tempted to issue an LBA.

[2Grumpy]

With a lot of these things they don't have your details, they just spam text everyone, then sit back and hope that people will "unsubscribe" and give them a few pennies profit. I don't try replying to unsubscribe to any span texts and don't remember ever getting any further texts from them. Your texts might fit into that category but now you have questioned them they are trying to justify themselves and hope that you go away.

[Seminole]

The problem is that once your data is in the wind it can end up anywhere. All it takes is a rogue employee with systems access and a memory stick in any legit company let alone those who hack and harvest data at the fringes.

 

I accept that I'm going to receive spam emails and texts until I change my phone number and email address and the inconvenience of doing that outweighs the annoyance.

 

I was genuinely surprised to be charged to unsubscribe though and particularly where there doesn't seem to be any legitimate basis for the contact in the first place. Moreover, I would like to strike back at one of the spammers and make them regret being in their business.

[Seminole]

And the latest update is that they will look into the matter further and get back to me on Monday. Apparently, however, Top New Ventures has ceased trading and the person I've been writing to is just an unpaid administrator. Amazing that. As well as being an 'unpaid administrator' he's also a current director of the company according to Companies House!

 

I'm afraid that we've now crossed over the point where I though I was being lied to to the one where I know they are lying to me.

[citizenB]

Gary Bury, please see message sent via your private message box.