br!ghtshark has been tormented by unscrupulous sms’ers over the past few months and after getting over the initial irritation factor, decided that, “for crying out loud, I’m an e-lawyer, this can’t be!”…

So, the process started to rid my cellphone of those pesky sms’es, arriving day and night, advertising credit cards, new fashion sales and parties (lawyers are boring, didn’t they know it won’t help!). The first step was to try and get hold of the offending sms’er. This in itself was quite an interesting experience since MTN provided me with the name and contact details of the person who was sending the sms’ (I would have thought that at the very least they would want something in writing from me, not to even mention a court order).

After trying in vain to get hold of some nondescript company to ask them to remove me from my list I decided to report the matter to WASPA (the Wireless Applications Service Provider’s Association – http://www.waspa.org.za/). WASPA is a body founded by the cellphone carriers/providers in SA as a “self-regulating body”. Needless to say I didn’t have much hope of getting any joy from them, but plunged in nevertheless.

Reporting an incidence of SMS spam is as easy as filling out an online form and within a few days I received an email from WASPA, attempting to address the issue.

The process progresses through various stages (starting at an attempt on sorting out the situation amicably and ending up at an arbitration).

To make the proverbial long story short, br!ghtshark was pleasantly surprised to receive an email from the WASPA secretariat recently that the SMS’er was found to be in contravention of the code of conduct and fined the SMS’er R7500 as well as suspending the service of the SMS’er for a minimum of two weeks).

br!ghtshark is impressed! Bravo to WASPA – a prime example of self-regulation that actually works! The judgment can be seen HERE

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