Campaign Guidance - Ireland - Vodafone & Three Compliance Requirements
Ireland - Three Compliance Requirements
Breach severity assessment - Marketing flows and service operation
| Issue | Severity | |
| Misleading advertising or banner - False advertising, fake claims or in correct promotions. For instance, “your phone has been infected with 5 viruses” or “Congratulations you have won an iPhone” - False marketing claim that the service is free, if the service is a paid-for VAS service - Competition services : Promotional material must not exaggerate the chance of winning a prize or suggest that winning the prize is a certainty. For instance, “You have won a voucher”, “Claim your prize” - Time pressure “You have 4 minutes to claim your prize” |
Yellow | |
| Inappropriate placement - Promoting VAS in inappropriate sites, especially in sites targeted to children. For example, promoting non-children services on media that is particularly attractive to children such as kid’s apps or videos. |
Yellow | |
| Passing off by using big brand logos - If brand is associated with a lie (i.e. Google and a prelander stating 27 viruses discovered) - If the merchant is using a retailer’s brand without permission for a competition for a voucher from the retailer |
Red Yellow |
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| Advertising on content locking site – “incentivised traffic” - Content lockers offer a product in return for subscribing to a VAS service. The original offer is never delivered - If the offer is illegal e.g. Paypal, Whatsapp, Facebook hack offers - If not an illegal offer e.g. Pokemon Go coins, game cheats, free shopping rewards |
Red Yellow |
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| Promoting free trials - The duration of the “free” period must be clearly identified in all promotional material, including any messages that may be send to the end-user |
Yellow | |
| Auto-subscriptions – charging customers without their consent - The customer is subscribed and/or billed by a VAS without clicking on any payment buttons such as “Buy Now”, “Subscribe” and “Confirm” or by sending a text message to provide unambiguous consent to the charges - Often the charged party will not know a charge has taken place or may get a text message advising them they have joined a subscription service Note: This can be caused by app malware, click jacking, iframe masking and header enrichment abuse. The use of Empello’s FraudStop can prevent autosubscriptions! |
Red | |
| Ambiguous Call-To-Action (CTA) button labelling - The CTA button must be labelled with words that clearly indicate the consumer is entering into a financial transaction (even after a free trial) - Acceptable CTA button labels on the first click are: “Subscribe” for subscription services or “Buy Now” / ”Pay Now” for one-off services. Words such as “Ok”, “Play Now”, “Accept” or “Enter” are unacceptable - Button labels must be the most prominent text on the CTA, in the middle and with good contrast - Only the CTA should be clickable, and this should apply to all buttons - There must be only one CTA per payment page |
Yellow | |
| Price not prominent - Pricing must be bold and prominent, on its own line, horizontally as clear and correct 'stand-alone' information separated from a clear and unambiguous description of the service - Pricing and description – including competition terms and conditions where appropriate - must be a on a solid background colour always using a good level of contrast between background and text – grey on white will not be accepted - Pricing must be prominent on all payment pages - this applies for any and all CTAs or MSISDN entry boxes during the process |
Yellow | |
| No price on landing page or poor legibility of price - Pricing must be directly above or below the CTA or MSISDN entry box displayed clear using the € symbol for the cost on all steps of the payment process - Price must also be visible on both payment pages without scrolling - No graphical separation between price and service description, and CTA - The price must be prominent. This includes using a clear font size, and font colour, the whole area of pricing information must have a contrast ratio to its background of 2:1 |
Red | |
| Disclaimer and/or terms and conditions missing - Key information on how to unsubscribe must be displayed on the landing page. It must include the short code and keyword to use to unsubscribe by text and /or the appropriate contact details - This information must also be sent along with the receipt SMS Note: The Operator should tell Empello if a standard keyword such as “STOP” is mandated. The Operator should tell Empello if other means of unsubscribing are supported (such as a link url) and if it is permitted that it can be instead of the text based facility. If a particular method is mandated, then is the absence of this method a Red flag or yellow? |
Yellow | |
| Price not prominent - Pricing must be bold and prominent, on its own line, separated from a clear and unambiguous description of the service. - Pricing and description – including competition terms and conditions where appropriate - must be a on a solid background colour always using a good level of contrast between background and text – grey on white will not be accepted. - Pricing must be prominent on all payment pages - this applies for any and all CTAs or MSISDN entry boxes during the process. |
Yellow | |
| One-click opt-in – missing merchant-hosted landing page - In the case of header enrichment being allowed for merchants, they must apply “two-click flow”. All flows that are one-click to subscribe are not allowed - The merchant-hosted landing page must not be skipped with a redirect or auto-click to show directly the aggregator’s page or operator’s payment page resulting in the flow being “one click” Note: The Operator should tell Empello if a Single Click payment operation is permitted |
Yellow | |
| No method to exit the payment page without commitment - The payment page must allow the consumer to exit without making a financial commitment - The exit button / link must be clearly seen on the page above the fold and contrast with its background by 2:1 |
Yellow | |
| Missing purchase confirmation receipts - PRS provider must ensure that consumers are provided with purchase confirmation receipts, those receipts must contain sufficient, relevant information to enable consumers to clearly identify the individual transaction - Purchase confirmation receipt messages (request, confirmation and unsubscribe messages) must follow ComReg’s format - Subscription request message: When an end-user requests to subscribe to a Subscription Service, and prior to a user incurring any charges, the PRS Provider must send a standard, dedicated, SMS (ComReg 5.15). This message must be sent before users are subscribed and the user needs to reply with the specified code word, pre-populated messages are not acceptable. - Subscription confirmation message: As soon as the consumer is subscribed, a SMS must be sent stating the service name, charge, frequency of charging, the unsubscribe facility (STOP command) and the merchant contact details (ComReg 5.18) - Single charge services: As soon as the consumer has been charged, a SMS must be sent stating the service name, charge, and the merchant contact details - Free Trial services: As soon as the consumer has been charged, a SMS must be sent stating the service name, length of the free trial, the charge after the trial, the unsubscribe / exit facility (STOP command) and the merchant contact details Note: These requirements are in support of EU Regulations (Confirmation of a Distance Sale Contract) for appropriate countries and The ComReg Code of Practice for PRS in Ireland |
Yellow | |
| No welcome SMS sent or delays in activating subscription - As soon as the consumer is subscribed, a welcome SMS must be sent stating the terms, the price and the method of exit (STOP command) of the subscription - There should not be any delays in receiving the welcome SMS and/or activating the service |
Yellow | |
| No access to content - Consumers must be informed how to access the merchant’s services immediately (unless it is obvious) and not have to rely on tracing steps backwards through the browser - Consumers must have instant access to the content upon completing a successful subscription or starting a free trial - Content must be available in full and if it is a subscription service, then no additional payments should be required |
Red | |
| Method of exit (STOP command) not working – impossible to unsubscribe - Consumers must be able to unsubscribe from the service at any time they wish. The STOP command or other methods of exit must be working and when used, it must provide an instant cessation of charges - An unsubscribe free confirmation message that follows ComReg’s format must be sent to the consumer (ComReg 5.32) Note: STOP is the usual keyword for ending subscription charges. If the Operator supports other keywords, please detail this here. |
Red | |
| No renewal SMS sent - All active subscriptions to VAS must be renewed to the same price and conditions that the user accepted during the original subscription - A renewal SMS must be sent every time the service renews, or another period as defined by the Operator |
Yellow | |
| Compliance with GDPR - All SMS marketing must be GDPR compliant with regards to hard and soft opt-in, opting out of marketing communications must also be in line with GDPR |
Yellow | |
| PIN Opt-in - Failure to produce ComReg license and permission to Empello before offering services via PIN opt-in. Any one instance of a service with PIN opt-in running on the network will result in a red card and subsequently 30-day suspension of the short-code |
Red | |
| Other technical issues - Some services might encounter technical issues that are not necessarily harmful to the consumer. These technical issues are assessed on FraudScan with a Grey card |
Grey | |
| Customer care line failure - The helpline number must be available and be answered by someone who can assist with a typical query, if the number does not exist or is never available, this will result in a red card |
Red | |
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