Can you trust this lot at all? In its press release relating to Opera Telecom, it provides the following words of wisdom:

0871 calls, which ICSTIS/PhonepayPlus will start regulating in early 2008, cost up to 10 pence per minute from
landlines but can cost up to 35 pence per minute from mobiles.
• ICSTIS/PhonepayPlus cannot deal with complaints about services operating on non-premium rate numbers unless
these services redirect callers to a premium rate number. Non-premium rate numbers include:
• 080 numbers – calls are free from landlines but can cost 10-15 pence per minute from mobiles.
• 084 numbers – 0845 calls cost 3-5 pence per minute from landlines but can cost 10-15 pence per minute from
mobiles. 0844 calls cost up to 5 pence per minute from landlines but can cost up to 25 pence per minute from
mobiles.
• 0870 numbers – calls cost 5-10 pence per minute from landlines but can cost 10-19 pence per minute from
mobiles.

Just where does this idiotic body get its information from?

This is the authority that will soon start to 'regulate' 0871 numbers. If it has no idea of correct calling costs, what hope is there?!

http://www.icstis.org.uk/pdfs_news/MediaRelease_Opera_Telecom.pdf

ICSTIS IMPOSES RECORD FINE OF £250,000 ON OPERA TELECOM
FOR SELECTING POTENTIAL GMTV COMPETITION WINNERS EARLY
ICSTIS, the phone-paid services regulator, has today imposed its maximum fine of £250,000
on GMTV competition phone service provider Opera Telecom Ltd for selecting potential
winners before the competition had closed. ICSTIS found that all correct entries submitted
after a certain time each day had no chance of winning, despite consumers being charged
for entering. The fine is the highest ever imposed by ICSTIS in its 21-year history.
In what it described as the “the worst case which ICSTIS had come across in terms of the numbers
of consumers affected and the amount of money at stake”, ICSTIS found that, by picking potential
winners early, in almost four years at least 18 million callers had been charged for entering the
competition but had no chance of winning. With the average cost of a call being over £1, the
revenue generated by callers with no hope of winning appeared to be in excess of £20 million.
ICSTIS has also imposed additional sanctions on Opera Telecom:
• A bar on running competition services for 12 months. This has been suspended subject to Opera
Telecom undergoing, and implementing the recommendations of, an independent evaluation of
its procedures and management structure to address “systemic failures within the company”.
• An order to pay full refunds to complainants. This has been suspended for three months pending
a review by ICSTIS of the success of the current refunds scheme.
• A formal reprimand. (I bet Opera is worried about this)

So, a revenue of $40m and a fine of $0.5m.

Is this punishment, or a pat on the back.

Like Ofcom, this is one inept and corrupt organization.

And, from Mr Kidd:

“Our Hearing Panel found
clear evidence of fundamental failings within Opera Telecom. The company showed a reckless
disregard for the interests of callers, with scant evidence of any attention being given to compliance
with our Code of Practice. We have ordered Opera Telecom to bring in outside consultants to sort
out their business. If they don’t do this to our satisfaction, the bar on them running competition
services will come into effect immediately.

“The size of the fine we’ve imposed reflects the very serious nature of the breach of our rules. The
consumer harm caused was aggravated by the sheer number of callers who paid to enter the
competition but had no chance of winning, the huge amount of revenue that was unfairly generated
from these callers, the length of time over which the practice had been going on and the extensive
damage caused to public trust in phone-in competitions. The decisions we’ve announced today are
part of a wider examination of events. Ofcom has also been investigating GMTV’s role and
responsibilities, and will report on its findings in due course.
“Today’s adjudication sends a clear message to any company offering phone-paid services: your
absolute responsibility is to the public who use your services. Cutting corners for the sake of
convenience or to boost revenues is simply unacceptable and has serious consequences. The
interests of consumers and compliance with our rules, and those of other regulators, should be at
the heart of services, not an afterthought. Since problems with phone-in competitions came to light
earlier this year, we’ve been working hard with Ofcom, phone companies and broadcasters to
ensure that services are run in a thoroughly professional and responsible way. We’re confident that
this particular market today is certainly not the flawed place it was a year ago. But we’re certainly
not being complacent. We want to engender an industry-wide culture of compliance, and preempting
and preventing problems across all services will be a major focus of our work when we
become PhonepayPlus next month.”

The full adjudication at http://www.icstis.org.uk/consumers/adjudications/default.asp?node=&id=670 makes for interesting, and depressing reading.

It shows just how much money is being made through NGNs where there is little consumer protection.

Shocking really.

Quote:

So, a revenue of $40m and a fine of $0.5m.

Not bad if you can get it. Where do I apply? ;)

They would have liked it to have been more.

Quote:

64. The ICSTIS Sanctions Guide separates fines into various bands according to seriousness. The panel considers that Opera was absolutely right to concede that this case falls into the ‘very serious’ bracket where the band runs up to £250,000. ICSTIS cannot impose a fine larger than this for a breach of a single paragraph of the Code. Bearing in mind the principle of proportionality, and taking into account the degree of consumer harm, the revenue received and the size of Opera’s turnover, it is clear that, but for this cap, it would be possible to justify a fine well in excess of the limit of £250,000.