MyAdhan Blog

Link: Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission Stop SMS Contest

Another Link: Maxis to refund SMS contest participants

The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) will not hesitate to take enforcement action for any short message service (SMS)-based contest that breaches licence conditions under the Communications and Multimedia Act (CMA). In a statement today, the commission said it was constantly monitoring the services provided by licensees. Referring to a complaint on the SMS contest launched by Maxis Communications Bhd in conjunction with the Chinese New Year celebrations which was reported in the Weekend Mail on Jan 26, MCMC said it had investigated the matter. “MCMC was informed by Maxis that the promotional SMS in conjunction with the Chinese New Year was discontinued starting Jan 21 and that Maxis will refund the money collected to all 21,222 participants of the contest by February 2008,” the commission said. MCMC said it was also investigating if there had been any violation of licence conditions, the CMA or the General Consumer Code for not sufficiently providing pricing information in the promotional material. Meanwhile, Maxis said the contest in question was a planned Chinese New Year campaign activity by an external content provider. The contest was scheduled to run from Jan 1 to 31 and offered 10 prizes to winners. “The terms and conditions for the contest were approved by Maxis while the content provider executed the contest on our behalf,” Maxis said in a statement. “An SMS promotion of the contest was sent out by our content partner to Maxis customers who, in the past, have subscribed to similar content services,” it said. Maxis said this was a free message and the SMS broadcast complied with the operator guidelines developed with the MCMC. “However, the subsequent contest-related SMS broadcast was wrongly charged to customers,” the company said. “As soon as Maxis was made aware of the charges to customers, we immediately instructed the content provider to comply with the Maxis-approved conditions of the contest.” Maxis said that it had suspended the shortcode and all promotions related to the contest.