A company which used Facebook to encourage children to support a beauty pageant entrant has been slapped with a £20,000 fine by the regulator after two sisters ran up a bill of more than £2,500 texting the service.
PhonepayPlus ruled that Captive Interactive Systems was responsible for promotional material posted on Facebook by a candidate who had entered Miss Teen Queen UK.
Two sisters, aged 11 and 12, spent a collective £2,548 texting support for the candidate, after being “encouraged to do so through Facebook”, the regulator said in a statement. PhonepayPlus was alerted after the children’s mother complained.
Captive helped operate a “children’s [premium rate] service” that enabled the public to vote for their favoured candidates. Under the code of practice promotional material for children’s services must clearly state how much the service costs and that children should only use the service if they have obtained permission to do so from whoever is responsible for paying the bill.
The code also prohibits children’s services, and associated promotional material, from containing anything that is “likely to result in harm to children or others or which exploits their credulity, lack of experience or sense of loyalty”. The service or promotional material must not “encourage children to use other premium rate services or the same service again”.
PhonepayPlus said Captive had been in breach of all those rules. It also ruled Captive in breach of rules that generally require either a service or information provider of a PRS to clearly state their identity and contact details, including their customer service phone number, for any promotion they run.
In addition to the fine Captive received a ‘formal reprimand’ and must repay users of its service a full refund if they claim the money back, unless there is “good cause” to believe the claims are invalid.
