Polska Telefonia Cyfrowa (T-Mobile) has been fined more than PLN 21 million (c. €5 million) by UOKiK for unfair market practices.
T-Mobile (formerly ERA) is also required to publish the decision
on its website
(www.t-mobile.pl) for six months.
UOKiK, Poland's competition authority, brought proceedings against the mobile operator after receiving hundreds of complaints from consumers who received text messages asking them "Did you become a Millionaire today".
The messages suggested that those responding to the message would only participate in the lottery for a day, whereas in fact they were agreeing to receive expensive text messages every day until the end of the lottery, unless they withdrew.
UOKiK also found that the messages did not make it clear how much it would cost to take part in the lottery. They first stated that any reply was free but then, at the end, stated "4.88 PLN/day".
The maximum fine in such cases is up to 10% of the company's turnover for the previous year. However, T-mobile paid compensation to some consumers who complained, which helped to reduce its fine.
Law: Art. 24 paras 1 & 2.3, Act of 16 Feb 2007 on competition and consumer protection Art. 3, 4 & 5, Act of 23 Aug 2007 on combating unfair commercial practices
This article was written for Law-Now, CMS Cameron McKenna's free online information service. To register for Law-Now, please go to www.law-now.com/law-now/mondaq
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The original publication date for this article was 06/01/2011.
