Premium rate numbers, which are flourishing in France, waste time and money, are in the crosshairs of the DGCCRF, which reports new ones to warn users.
The number of calls to premium rate numbers has exploded in recent months, prompting the Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) to sound the alarm.
In-depth checks carried out in 2022 revealed abusive practices by certain companies. Of the 14 companies scrutinized, five were singled out and sanctioned for flagrant breaches of regulations.
In a press release published on its site, the DGCCRF informs users about the deceptive practices of these companies and reminds them of the tools at their disposal to report abuse and protect themselves from these unwanted calls.
DGCCRF investigation after numerous reported abuses
Simply pick up to pay without your knowledge. This is the unstoppable practice of premium rate calls. The companies that hold these numbers practice cold calling to sell or offer services to users.
Most of these companies, called Value Added Service operators, are legitimate. In fact, it is Arcep which allocates them available, short or specific number ranges for an annual fee.
However, some of these operators or SVA publishers do not comply with the regulations in force, such as the company Foriou, which received a hefty fine of 310,000 euros after being singled out by the CNIL for having used users’ personal data. without their consent.
In 2022, the DGCCRF investigated 14 companies, publishers and VAS operators combined based on abuses reported by users. The aim being to check that these groups complied with the regulations in force, namely “ the prohibition of any deceptive commercial practice encouraging consumers to call premium rate numbers, the obligation to provide information on prices or the accuracy of information in the reverse directory “.
The operators, for their part, also came under the scrutiny of the DGCCRF, which had to ensure that they took care of users’ reports and to take measures to suspend or terminate the numbers assigned to publishers and companies in the event of violations.
It was at the end of this investigation that 5 of the 14 controlled entities were identified for deceptive commercial practices. Indeed, the investigation revealed abusive practices such as encouraging people to call back premium rate numbers through misleading calls or SMS messages, ambiguous commercial advertisements encouraging people to call premium rate numbers without clear mention of the price, and the use of premium rate numbers in unreliable medical or public service directories, with operators reluctance to terminate contracts despite repeated breaches of regulations.
Fines and recommendations: the DGCCRF regulates premium rate calls
To continue to effectively combat the excesses of premium rate calls, the DGCCRF regularly updates the number ranges, following the example, at the beginning of 2023, of the banned 06 and 07, and provides consumers with reporting or information tools.
We thus find the site www.infosva.org dedicated to premium rate numbers with a reverse directory in which publishers must indicate the cost of the call and the service offered, the site www.surmafacture.fr or even 33700, more specific to voice and SMS spam.
Useful reminder, numbers starting with 081, 082, 089 or certain short 4-digit numbers starting with 10 or 3 or 6 digits starting with 118 are part of premium rate calls, which are only detected by users once they have ‘they receive their bill.
Finally the DGCCRF displays its hunting list. The breaches led to warnings, fines and injunctions: a site providing assistance with administrative procedures was fined 50,000 euros, an SVA operator was fined 100,000 euros, and a publisher received an injunction to clearly display the price of premium rate numbers on all its advertising media.
It specifies that article L. 224-47-1 of the Consumer Code requires SVA operators to terminate their contracts in the event of repeated breaches of the regulations.
Source : DGCCRF
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