ICSTIS, the UK regulatory body for premium rate telecoms services, fined Polo Ltd. following its investigation on the back of 143 consumer complaints.
The promotional text messages were referring to each recipient as a "valued customer". This, according to ICSTIS, created the impression that the messages were sent by the recipients' own mobile networks, when this was not the case. ICSTIS considered that this may have given an air of validity to the promotion.
The messages also failed to indicate the likely additional cost of calling the service from a mobile phone, and they did not give any information on the total cost and duration of the service.
In addition, the messages did not give an adequate description of the "£150 prize", and used the word "win" to describe an item that all recipients appeared eligible to claim.
ICSTIS did not reveal whether any consumers received a prize of any kind but stated that it found that the messages were misleading and in breach of its own Code of Practice.
Polo, which did not respond to the allegations, was fined £15,000 and access to its service has been banned for one year.
According to the latest ICSTIS report, the regulatory body is concerned about the number of complaints being received in relation to reverse-billed premium rate text messages.
This involves service providers sending promotional text messages, usually telling the recipients they have won a prize. If the recipients respond, a premium rate service is triggered and they receive premium rate text messages charged at up to £1.50 per message.
ICSTIS also expresses concerns that certain service providers have been advertising text chat services in publications aimed at children under the age of 16.
Under the body's guidelines, non-adult chat services are only allowed to be offered to the 16-17 year-old age group on condition that they must be advertised in publications where the target readership is not below 16 years of age.
The ICSTIS report for February 2003 is available here.
The 26-page ICSTIS Code of Practice is available here.