Tanla Mobile Update: the txts have finally stopped coming

by: admin Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008

Rating: Tanla blames its client, 2Comm

Good news for my bank balance. The premium rate texts for want-tone club have finally stopped arriving on my handset. ( See here.) Tanla Mobile, which owns the shortcode in question, has explained that the service is actually operated by its client – 2Comm.

Devita Michael, who works in customer care for Tanla, pointed out that the company is “merely the aggregator for this client [2Comm]. We do not participate in any promotions or services they have to offer.”

Consequently, “Normally it is not within Tanla’s remit to refund.” So if I was a normal punter, I’d probably have to start pursuing 2Comm myself. What does Devita then supply as a phone number to contact 2Comm? An 0871 number, of course.

Meaning that in order to obtain a refund, I’d have to splash out on an expensive mobile phone call. Fortunately, I’ve got the Net and 2Comm’s real telephone number is 0800 520 0321.

Luckily for me, however, Ms Michael has discovered that, “The matter was not dealt with by 2Comm when it was escalated by the Customer Service Tanla Helpdesk.

So Tanla is taking ownership of the problem and my cheque is in the post.

This whole sorry episode reveals just how powerless the ordinary consumer is. As an ordinary citizen, I would been forced to call a premium rate line to speak to Tanla. Who in turn would have referred me to 2Comm and another premium rate phone number.

Even if you discount the value of your own time wasted trying to recover money that you didn’t think you owed, it is still clear pursuing such a claim against an individual content provider isn’t economical.

When enough people realise this, they’re simply going to stop ordering content. And there’ll be even worse news because the only way to stop such things happening any more is to have the network operator block all premium rate messages from being delivered to your number.

Presently, no such facility exists. If the industry and aggregators don’t get their act together, however, that could easily happen.