Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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190. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the measures that will be enacted to protect consumers in cases where the customers of some mobile telephone companies are receiving unsolicited text messages and are being charged for such messages at exorbitant rates; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16172/15]

Alex White (Dublin South, Labour)
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There are statutory provisions in place in both general consumer law and sector specific legislation to protect retail users of electronic communication services from incurring arbitrary charges for the provision of electronic communications services, including charges for receiving unsolicited texts which do not form part of a contracted service.Under current European regulations, electronic communications service providers are obliged to notify any proposed changes of retail charges to customers not less than one month prior to the date of implementation of any proposed change and of their right to withdraw without penalty from the contract if they do not accept the notified changes. These obligations apply to all electronic communications services providers.

Customers can also incur charges for texts received as part of a premium rate service where users agree to receive and pay for such a service. Premium rate services providers are bound by a code of conduct established by the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg), as provided for in the Communications Regulation (Premium Rate Services and Electronic Communications Infrastructure) Act, 2010. This code, among other things, requires that premium rate services providers send free messages to subscribers which state the basis for calculating charges including charges for each message received and charges for each message sent. The periodic message should be sent each time an end user spends a maximum of €20 on the subscription service and advise the subscriber how to unsubscribe from the service by sending/replying "STOP" to the short code which is used to charge end-users of the service.

Any mobile phone user who has received unsolicited texts or has incurred excessive charges for receiving texts should contact ComReg, the independent market regulator, directly. ComReg can be contacted by post at Block DEF, Abbey Court, Irish Life Centre, Lower Abbey Street, Dublin 1 or by phone at 01-804 9707 or 1890200035 for business related issues or 01-8049668 or 1890229668 for other consumer issues or by e-mail to for business related issues or for other consumer issues or send a text with the word COMREG to 51500.