Dynamic Mobile Billing Limited

The Phone-paid Services Authority (referred to as the ‘Executive’) opened a ‘Track 2’ investigation under the 14th Edition of the Code of Practice (‘Code 14’) into the intermediary provider Dynamic Mobile Billing Limited (‘DMB’) in July 2020.

The investigation was triggered as a result of the high number of complaints that were being received on a number of merchant providers (referred to as Level 2 providers under Code 14) who were offering subscription services.

Between January 2018 and 14 November 2020, the Executive received a combined total of 3,047 complaints across the relevant merchant providers.

A number of investigations were opened in respect of the merchant providers, some of which resulted in Tribunal adjudications which upheld breaches.

Having considered the settlement proposed by DMB including the submissions made in respect of breach severity and the aggravating and mitigating factors, the Executive agreed with DMB that the final sanctions imposed should be:

• a formal reprimand
• a requirement that DMB submits to a compliance audit on its Risk Assessment and Control. Such audit to be conducted by an approved third party to a standard prescribed by the PSA, the costs of such audit to be paid by DMB and recommendations implemented within a period specified by the PSA (paragraph 5.8.5(k) of Code 15)
• a requirement that DMB remedy the breach by fully implementing all recommendations arising from the compliance audit (paragraph 5.8.5(a) of Code 15)
• a fine of £250,000 (paragraph 5.8.5(d) of Code 15).

The parties also agreed that DMB would pay 100% of the PSA’s administrative charges in the amount of £6,555.

Dynamic Mobile Billing Limited Consent order signed by both parties