Consumers receiving unwanted SMS marketing messages from companies that they have not directly supplied with their cellphone numbers should report the spammer to the Wireless Application Service Providers’ Association of South Africa (WASPA).
That’s according to Russel Stromin, head of WASPA’s Code of Conduct (WCoC) Committee. He said that the association takes consumers’ rights to privacy very seriously and forbids its members from sending unsolicited messages to consumers whose numbers they have acquired through third-party databases.
Said Stromin: “According to the WCoC, businesses need your explicit consent to send you marketing messages via SMS if you have not directly given them your number. You can lodge a complaint against any WASPA member that breaks this rule.”
In addition, consumers have a further remedy in the form of the new Consumer Protection Act, which stipulates that any company embarking on a direct marketing campaign must first compare their list of numbers they are sending SMSs to against an new national opt-out register called the Do Not Call Registry (DNCR) and ensure that any names on such a register are deleted off their database.
This DNCR is however not yet available as it is currently out for tender for its development. While the DNCR will apply to all companies who send SMSs, users will only gain benefit from the DNCR if they take the trouble to register their details on the DNCR.
The WCoC specifies that each SMS message must have a ‘STOP’ command inserted into it such that if someone sends a reply SMS back with the word ‘STOP’ in it, the company that originally sent the message must remove that number from any further SMS communications.
However, WASPA has noticed that some consumers are reluctant to use this useful ‘STOP’ facility as they are concerned that this will simply confirm to the sender that their number is active. But with SMS, the sender already knows that your number is 'active', because it receives a delivery report on delivery of the SMS to the phone.
If the sender is a respectable company and you opted in to receive its communications at some point, you can usually depend on the company concerned to remove you from its database following a ‘STOP’ request.
This reply may only be charged for at the standard SMS rate. “That said, the suggested opt-out procedure should only be followed if you opted-in in the first place,” Stromin said.