Voda creates premium text blocker

VODAFONE APPEARS to have soft launched a facility which is the answer to many Brit mobile phone users' prayers.

Called Premium SMS Bar, this facility will entirely block any kind of premium rate text message (PRSMS) arriving, or being sent from, your mobile phone.

The launch is so soft that Vodafone doesn't appear to have told its own staff about it yet.

The INQ has long moaned that Premium Rate Service (PRS) providers have been totally able to extract money from unsuspecting mobile phone users with virtually no viable recourse.

In essence, it costs more than the £1.50 such services providers obtain from you in order to complain about unfair practices and achieve a refund. This will no longer be true the Vodafone Premium SMS Bar facility.

Vodafone warns that, "Television voting, polls, competitions and any other kind of offers which say 'Text EXAMPLE to 00000' will no longer work on your mobile" if you institute the Bar.

Which is exactly the facility that many INQ readers have been begging for. They can now provide their offspring with mobile phones happy in the knowledge that the 'barred' handset cannot possibly receive any adult content.

Simultaneously, Vodafone has introduced a facility known as V-SPAM which enables its subscribers to report any messages which they feel were unsolicited.

All the victims need to do is forward such mobile spam messages to Vodafone's special VSPAM number – 87726 – for the operator to take appropriate action. Forwarding the spam won't cost a penny.

The new Premium SMS Bar is intelligent enough that it won't block the kind of traffic which most users wish to receive – chiefly MMS (picture) messages and offers sent via a technique known as WAP Push.

A Vodafone spokesperson told the INQ that the Bar can be implemented by contacting the Vodafone Customer Service centre.

We attempted to install the Bar but the help centre agent was unable to find any such service on the system. So the news hasn't quite filtered through yet, it seems.

When it does eventually work, the company says the Bar will be applied to the user's account in the normal way and will be active within 24 hours.

To activate the Bar, existing Vodafone users can call 191 (the call costs 25 pence) from their mobile phones. Alternatively you can call +44 7836 191 191 from outside the UK or email Vodafone, More details here. µ

L'Inq
Bar announcement

See also
Premium texts prove unstoppable