Mobile Spending

About two months ago my brother-in-law noticed that there were downloads made on his iPhone. Even though it was not a considerable amount of money, these few US Dollars spent were still a mystery to him. When he started asking around the little” culprit was unmasked: his six year old daughter. She just wanted some more clothes for her Dress-up-Dolly game, no harm in that is there?

How can a six year old have such easy access to downloads and thus extra billing on your account? Well, your mobile operator (Vodacom, MTN, Cell C) has all your information on their database and they have access to your money via your phone bill. Why, you may ask? It is extremely easy to mobile spend - Child’s play in fact.

According to a World Wide Worx study done in early 2010, 3.36 million South Africans were at that point in time actively accessing the Internet via mobile web browsers, while 9 million via mobile applications. This compares to around 5 million PC-based Internet users in South Africa at the beginning of 2010. When you do spend via your PC, you are required to enter your credit card and contact details, agree to terms and conditions and then confirm a second or third time that you are proceeding with the transaction. In contrast, mobile spending merely requires clicking on certain links and immediately you will have access to new ringtones, games, wall papers, daily verses, jokes, videos, and the list goes on.

It is mainly children that rarely understand the consequences of their clicking-actions and parents who receive the unexpected phone bills with unapproved and unwanted billing.

As a safety measure the Wireless Application Service Providers'Association (WASPA) has put some of the following measures in place (as stipulated in their Code of Conduct) in an attempt to protect customers from spending money online unintentionally.  Thus, when clicking on a subscription link, the following should happen:

• A welcome message must be sent to the customer informing them of the cost of the mobile content service they are subscribed to, the number to dial for assistance and how to stop/unsubscribe to the service.
• A reminder SMS must be sent to customers monthly to remind them that they're subscribed to a mobile content service.
• A spend SMS notification must be sent to customers informing them when they've spent in excess of R300.00 on content within a period of 30 days.
• With once-off purchases of R10.00 or more the service provider must obtain specific confirmation from the customer and keep a record of such confirmation.
• If the impromptu purchase is valued at less than R10.00 the price must be clearly indicated as part of, or adjacent to, the link or option that will initiate the transaction.
• When it comes to subscription services, the regulations are a bit tighter. A second confirmation page must include the name of the service, clearly state that it’s a subscription service, the price of the service and how often the subscriber will be billed, as well as a customer support number. No marketing or other content may be included that might distract the consumer from the relevant facts.
• A further mechanism is already in place. Mobile network operators hold back on payments to third parties for two months.

Parents should be aware of the fact that mobile spending is easy, misleading and although user friendly, it is not child friendly. By this I mean that the above mentioned safety measures taken by WASPA will not necessarily deter a young child from subscribing to services or spending on their, or your, cell phone.

Furthermore, the marketing strategy for some of these subscription services is very aggressive and convincing. Children don’t see the fine print. They hear that they will be updated daily or weekly or that they will have unlimited access to the newest trends in whatever service they want to use. The same goes for mobile downloads and upgrades. Children want to stay entertained and they will do what is necessary to keep updated.

As a parent you should have a conversation with your child about mobile spending and clearly stipulate what the consequences can be. As with all other aspects of mobile use, you must put in place a set of rules that they can follow. From my own point of view, the following can be done to ensure that your child doesn’t spend on their cell phone unnecessarily:

• Do not subscribe to any service before checking with your parents first;
• Keep all confirmation messages;
• Downloads are only allowed once a month, e.g. one new game a month;
• Subscription fees must stay below R20.00/item or R40.00/month (depending on the amount of airtime given per month);
• Any mobile spending done without parents’permission will be deducted from pocket money;
• In extreme cases of spending, a mobile phone may be taken away for a specific period of time;
• Go through your child’s monthly bill or prepaid balance with them, teaching them to double check all billing.

Children should also be made aware of fraudulent billing. If they keep confirmation SMS’s or at least some record of what they spent their money on, it will be easy to identify unauthorised billing. Empower them by setting an example and reporting fraudulent billing to WASPA (www.waspa.org.za). Take them through the process and teach them to stand up for themselves in these situations.