Crazy Frog company fined £40,000

By Steve Malone

Posted on 21 Dec 2005 at 10:03

The company that has inflicted the 'Crazy Frog' ringtone on the world has been fined £40,000.

The premium phone rate watchdog ICSTIS imposed the fine on mBlox after a Hearing Panel found that customers who thought they were making a one off payment for the ringtone were, in fact, signing up to a five pound a week subscription service.

ICSTIS says it has received 338 complaints about the service from customers who claim they were duped into signing up for a subscription. The watchdog has now ordered that the ringtone provider mBlox refund all customers who feel they were misled.

The ICSTIS Director George Kidd said, 'Consumers should not be made to work to find out what any premium rate service involves or costs. Although the Panel found that there was no fraudulent or malicious intent behind the service, the companies concerned showed a careless disregard and unprofessional attitude to consumers in failing to be clear on the exact nature of the service'.

The downloads themselves were through the Jamster website. That company has now introduced a new Jamster Guardian service that allows parents to block content from being downloaded to any particular phone.

Ringtones have become a huge business in the UK with some estimates suggesting they make more money than the singles chart on which many of the tunes are based. They are often heavily advertised in magazines for teenagers who may not understand that downloading a ringtone of their favourite pop song may be signing them up to a long term contract.

The practice of advertising single downloads while in fact selling subscriptions is rife not only on ringtones but on many downloads services on the Internet - most of which lie outside the UK and are totally unregulated. It is often extremely hard to unsubscribe from these services.