SMS dating spammers hit by injunctions
Australia’s first federal court case involving SMS spam has resulted in injunctions against a group which was posting fake profiles on dating sites to lure people into joining a non existent mobile dating service.
According to the Australian Communications and Media Authority:
“The ACMA alleged that the respondents were engaged in a complicated scheme to obtain mobile phone numbers from members of dating websites, using fake member profiles, in order to send commercial electronic messages by SMS.
“Unsolicited messages were then sent to the mobile phone numbers offering the opportunity to chat via SMS using services described as the ‘Safe Divert’ or ‘Maybemeet’ services. The chat was not offered by genuine members of dating websites but employees of Mobilegate Ltd and Winning Bid Pty Ltd. Consumers were charged up to five dollars per message.”
Five respondents have had injunctions put in place against them – Mobilegate Ltd, Winning Bid Pty Ltd, Simon Anthony Owen, Tarek Andreas Salcedo and Glenn Christopher Maughan. A hearign on any legal penalties will follow later.
ACMA chairman Chris Chapman said:
“This is the first SMS spam case that the ACMA has brought before the courts. The significant resources that the ACMA has put into this matter, again demonstrates our commitment to protecting Australians against illegal conduct.”
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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as a previous insider, i was disgusted at this kind of activity, $5 sms’s each way.. wtf. It was a gold rush a couple of years ago, full of cowboys setting up shop in Australia, then once the regulations tightened, then pack up and move into another emerging market.I saw these business pulling in literally millions each month,it has been going on for years, I’ve seen many lucrative “local” chat services been run entirely out of a UK office.
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