Irish premium line companies banned in Britain: ThePost.ie


TCH Archives > Sunday Business Post > 2006/04/16 > Irish premium line companies banned in Britain

Irish premium line companies banned in Britain
Sunday, April 16, 2006 - By Kieron Wood
An Irish company that was fined €72,000 on St Patrick’s Day for running a premium-rate phone line promotion in Britain was fined and banned three times last year, a Sunday Business Post investigation can reveal.

On March 17, Icstis, the regulatory body for the British premium rate telecoms industry, fined Prime Media stg£50,000 (€72,282), and barred the company from access to premium rate lines for 15 months.

Prime Media was also formally reprimanded and referred to the Irish regulator, Regtel, after complaints from consumers in Doncaster and Norwich.

On May 19 last year, Prime Media was fined stg£20,000, barred for 12 months and ordered to pay refunds after 100 complaints were received about its pre-allocated prize draw.

On August 19, the firm was fined stg£20,000, barred from running prize line/competition services for 12 months and formally reprimanded after Icstis received six complaints about the company’s pre-allocated prize draw.

On October 19, it was fined stg£25,000 and given a 12-month ban on all competition/prize claim line services following 12 complaints. In September 2004, Prime Media was fined stg£10,000 by Icstis, barred for six months and ordered to refund all complainants.

Last year’s fines were paid by Prime Media’s network provider, Energis, which is part of the Cable &Wireless group.

A spokesman for Energis said: ‘‘In this case, Energis was asked to withhold revenue from Prime Media Services under the terms of the Icstis code of practice. Icstis subsequently adjudicated against Prime Media Services and fined the company. When Prime Media Services failed to pay the fine, Energis - as required by the code of practice - handed the withheld revenue to the regulator.”

A spokeswoman for Icstis said last month’s fine had not yet been paid.

Prime Media was set up in April 2004 to ‘‘carry on the provision and reselling of premium rate audiotext and SMS services’’. According to Companies Registration Office (CRO) filings, it has registered offices at 3 Herbert Road, Bray, Co Wicklow, the former offices of solicitor Brian McLoughlin.

He told The Sunday Business Post that he had agreed to allow Prime Media to use the premises as its registered office, but he had moved offices in September 2004.

The directors of Prime Media Services are Eddy Doyle, 59, and Evelyn Doyle, 54, a ‘‘housewife/mother’’. According to CRO files, their address is Summer, Wyvern, Killiney, Co Dublin. The phone book gives the Doyles’ address as 23 Wyvern Estate, Killiney, but the current residents of that property said the Prime Media directors moved last May to Rochestown Avenue.

When contacted by The Sunday Business Post, Eddy Doyle said: ‘‘We are no longer involved in that business. I am not interested in discussing the matter any further.”

When it was pointed out that the registered details of Prime Media were incorrect, Doyle said: ‘‘I will deal with it in the appropriate manner. I don’t think the address is of any significance.”

Another Irish company which was disciplined by Icstis last year was Falcon Telecom which has a registered office at number 17, Block 7, Clarion Quay in the IFSC in Dublin.

The company had assets of €4.6million at the end of 2004.

Falcon is 100 per cent owned by MCC Print & Promotions, which has a registered address at Suite 322, The Capel Building, Mary’s Abbey, Dublin 7.

MCC’s directors are brothers Gavin, Iain and Shane McConnon. Gavin and Iain are also directors of Promocom Ireland, Falcon Telecom, Puppy Promotions, Promotion Payments, Value Group and Parcel Plus.

According to accounts for the year ending December 31, 2004, MCC has assets of €7.6 million.

The McConnons sell their mailing lists from Promocom Ireland which formerly had an address at Regus in The Sweepstakes, Dublin 4.

A member of staff at Regus said: ‘‘Promocom are no longer here, and we have no forwarding address for them. They rented an office here, but they are gone a year-and-a-half.

‘‘They seemed to do very well. The three brothers all had lovely cars. We were told they had bought a building in Marlboro Street [in Dublin city centre].”

The brothers’ companies have been the subject of a number of media probes in Britain.

BBC’s Inside Out team investigated a scratch card promotion where recipients were told they had won stg£50,000, a car or other valuable prizes.

After ringing a premium rate number at stg£1.50 a minute, the Inside Out team discovered it had actually won a DVD and holiday vouchers.

The Guardian also carried out an investigation. Reporter Miles Brignall said hundreds of thousands of British households last year received personalised letters, including four ‘‘prize cheques’’, from the McConnons’ Value Group.

Readers were led to believe that they had won up to stg£75,000.

An investigation into the company by the Mirror newspaper found that the McConnons had sent out what looked like cheques under names including Falcon Telecom and Value Group. The letter said: ‘‘With these cheques, you are guaranteed to receive cash.”

To claim, recipients had to make four calls, one for each ‘‘cheque’’. Small print at the bottom of the letter revealed that the calls would cost stg£1.50 a minute. Callers spent up to €72 each.

The address on the letters was a post office box run by a company in Huddersfield, Yorkshire. That firm was hired by a company employed by Promocom Ireland. The McConnons are directors of the Irish company.

Icstis said: ‘‘The promotion incorrectly suggested that cash prizes started at stg£1,000, when the majority of callers would be awarded less than stg£100, and potentially as little as stg£1.” Falcon was fined stg£10,000.

Last September, Icstis fined telecom firm Phonovation stg£7,500 for a ‘‘mock cheques’’ promotion. Phonovat ion worked for Falcon Telecom (Ireland), also run by the McConnons.

In April 2004, the Irish regulator Regtel shut down lines for Parcel Plus, a McConnon company which sent postcards telling recipients they had a package awaiting delivery, because of the ‘‘misleading nature of the promotion’’.

Those who received the postcards were asked to call a premium rate service, with calls costing up to €8. Following an investigation of the McConnons’ Value Group last April, Regtel banned competitions inviting people to claim cheque payments by dialling a premium rate number, and ordered the service provider to reimburse all consumers.

Regulator Pat Breen said: ‘‘It is important that people carefully read promotional literature claiming to offer ‘fantastic’ prizes and think carefully before ringing a premium rate number.

‘‘If callers come across what they believe to be a scam involving the use of premium rate numbers, they should contact Regtel at 1850741741.”

Two of the McConnons, Shane, 25, and Iain, 27, had an address at Simla, a house on the Upper Albert Road in Glenageary, south Dublin.

When The Sunday Business Post called at the house, there was nobody home.

Gavin, 28, drives a €150,000 black Ferrari, and owns apartments in Blocks 4 and 7 of Clarion Quay in the IFSC.

When The Sunday Business Post called to apartment 14 in block 4, the occupant said that McConnon was at work. A security man at the Capel Building said McConnon would not be in the office at all that day.

In reply to a series of questions e-mailed to him outside the country, Gavin McConnon denied that any of his companies had bought a building in Marlboro Street or that he and his brothers were directors of MCC.

He also said Iain and Shane no longer lived at the Glenageary address, that he and Iain McConnon were not directors of the companies listed on CRO documents, and that there was ‘‘a very large number of inaccuracies’’ in the British media reports about his companies, which ‘‘we would be willing to discuss at amore suitable time’’.

McConnon said: ‘‘We are very concerned with the inaccuracies of your statements and are forwarding this e-mail onto O’Donnell Sweeney solicitors who represent us personally and our companies.”