Telstra is to introduce additional measures which it says will safeguard its customers from unintentional subscriptions to premium SMS services.

“The first and easiest way for Telstra customers to control access to Premium SMS services is to simply request a bar on these services – as far as we know, Telstra is the only carrier to provide this barring option,” Fielding said.

Telstra’s new measures, to be introduced before the end of June this year, include:

• Amending Telstra’s own premium SMS service provider conduct policy to extend the double opt-in arrangement to all subscription services regardless of the method of subscription.
• A process to terminate providers that have had continued high and unacceptable complaint levels associated with their services, and
• The development of an incentive arrangement which rewards service providers that maintain a good customer service record.

According to Fielding, the new measures follow close on the heels of the industry lodging its mobile premium services industry code to the ACMA for registration.

Fielding says the new measures are in addition to the industry code and the measures Telstra already had in place to improve its customer experience, including  introduction of a default monthly spend limit on premium SMS to help customers manage their spend; issuing of its own service provider conduct policy which already includes a double opt-in requirement for Web and IVR advertised subscription services; introduction of a monitoring program where advertised premium SMS services are “mystery shopped” and tested to check compliance against Telstra’s conduct policy.

Fielding says in the vast majority of cases customers knew and valued the Premium SMS services they used, but in some cases customers were reporting that they were not aware they had signed up for a premium SMS service and did not know how to unsubscribe.

Telstra also reminded customers to be wary when sending or responding to SMS from numbers they do not recognise.