Mobile transaction network mBlox has issued a statement concerning investigations in to UK breaches of PhonepayPlus Code of Practice. mBlox has been the subject of an increasing number of PhonepayPlus adjudications, and says it has released the statement in order to put these in context and make it clear that these are historical problems which have been addressed by mBlox in conjunction with PhonepayPlus. The statement reads:

During the summer of 2008, mBlox was notified by PhonepayPlus of a significant rise in complaints about premium rate services that third parties provide to consumers via the mBlox network and the end users mobile carrier network. This trend, which mBlox identified during the summer, reflects an issue that confronts the entire European premium rate services industry as highlighted in the European Consumer Commissioners research in July.   
mBlox takes compliance breach seriously, and firmly believes that consumer trust and confidence are essential to the overall health of the industry. mBlox has concluded that monitoring and system tools to verify [that] customers are meeting their ongoing regulatory compliance are necessary to prevent the rogue behaviour exhibited by a small number of information providers. It became clear that mBlox needed to take active steps to verify [that] the compliance responsibilities of its customers were met.
As a result, mBlox has conducted audits of its premium service customers, identifying those whose campaigns are not compliant with the applicable regulations. However, due to the timescale involved in properly investigating complaints, there are some customer programmes that preceded the audits performed by mBlox and it is likely that further adjudications naming mBlox as the Service Provider will be published by PhonepayPlus based on these earlier programmes.
mBlox would like to stress that measures are now in place to address the issues that resulted in this rise in complaints. Complaints from the public relating to services billed by mBlox have consequently fallen dramatically, and to its knowledge no new investigations are arising.
Since July 2008 mBlox has been working closely with PhonepayPlus to ensure that it does all that it can to help its customers comply with the Code of Practice and take a strong lead in mitigating the results of this type of behaviour within the premium rate industry. It has implemented a number of additional measures, including mBlox Detect and a complete revision of its internal procedures, to reverse this trend.
As a further measure of mBloxs commitment, a number of measures have been implemented, including:
         An audit of all services and their marketing and promotions run by all mBlox customers in the UK
         The immediate remediation or suspension of any service found to be non-compliant with the PhonepayPlus Code of Practice
         The implementation of mBlox Detect, a major new investment in technology, for the routine traffic analysis of billing, to determine if any customers have been charging consumers unjustifiably
            The introduction of an online Shortcode look-up tool to assist consumers in reaching the providers of services easily for a more rapid resolution
          Implementation of new risk assessment procedures and blanket compliance certification of all new services before they go live
           Consulting PhonepayPlus on the adequacy of our compliance management regime

Since August, mBlox has audited over 500 UK services operating on over 400 Shortcodes. All issues discovered during this process have been resolved and since taking these steps, no new cases of customer non-compliance have been identified by PhonepayPlus. During this same time period, call volume to mBloxs UK consumer helpline has decreased significantly.

mBlox is urging consumers who are concerned about premium rate services to visit the companys Consumer Care pages.