CellFind caught out again

It seems that CellFind, the guys who illegally took money from my phone account, have been taking a bit more than just money. Now they are accused of stealing intellectual property as well.

An entrepreneur who claims to have invented Vodacom's money-spinner, Look4Me, says that former CEO Alan Knott-Craig snr stole his invention - and passed it on to his son, Alan jnr.
Internal Vodacom documents in the possession of the Sunday Times show that Knott-Craig snr then went out of his way to spend millions of Vodacom's money on promoting the idea through Knott-Craig jnr's company, Cellfind.
Stephen Rodgers, who patented the country's first cellphone tracking service in 2002, claims that, when confronted, Knott-Craig snr was unrepentant. Rodgers said Knott-Craig snr said he had "investigated (the patent) for loopholes and was quite happy to go to court and fight us. He also told my MD that we should go ahead and sue them."
The distraught entrepreneur and investors in his company, Gridwatch, had already ploughed R12-million into the business, which soon collapsed. Gridwatch's tracking system - known as Multi-Alert - was used by Vodacom in 2003, signing up over 3000 subscribers within months.

The article goes on to give more detail of how Gridwatch was asked to hand over plans, patents and specifications to Vodacom's lawyers. It seems their good faith was exploited and soon thereafter the new service replaced the old one.
The new service, Look4Me, then decided to add numbers to its "opt out" service is a devious and misleading way, and then lied about where they got my number from. It seems that their insistence that they got my number from Autopage is wrong, in the light of their cosy relationship with Vodacom, and because of the internal controls at Autopage. According to the Sunday Times:

Vodacom then allegedly went to "major expense" in marketing Look4Me for Cellfind, including providing Knott-Craig jnr with access to Vodacom's subscriber base.

Look4me and Look4Help Billing Fraud and Privacy Violations | Autopage MD calls | CellFind caught out again

Autopage MD calls

Stephen Blewett, the MD of Autopage called me this morning to apologise about the Look4Me, Look4Help issues. He told me that Autopage does not give out its customer information to anyone, and that if he catches any Autopage employee doing so he will fire them personally.
He explained to me that the call centres guess the number ranges of his and other companies, and then make calls without their knowledge. The first time they hear of the billing is when it comes from the network provider (i.e. Vodacom) as a WASP billing record. This system is full of problems, and can be abused by the WASPs. As an example of call centres guessing cell phone numbers, he told me of his wife being called to be offered a "better deal" on her phone.
Stephen also personally apologised on the HelloPeter web site.

I guess the question is why Cellfind claims to have obtained my number from Autopage and why they say they have contacted Autopage to ensure I am on their DNC list. Is it more ducking and diving? Eugenie from Autopage was also extremely doubtful that Autopage had supplied my number to Cellfind. Yet both Carla Legatt and Neil Barnard from Cellfind say it was so. Perhaps they are getting confused with who they sent the billing info to.

Update 11:30am: Andre Geboers from Digicall phoned to accept responsibility for his call centre's part in the process. They didn't check the numbers against the DMA list at the time of making the call, because they received their first list from the DMA on 1st December. They are doing checks against the DMA's list now. Because he was willing to accept personal responsibility for the call, I have dropped my demand for an advert in the Sunday Times.

Look4Help, Look4Me ducking and diving after getting caught out

These guys are unbelievable. Every time they talk to me they dig their own graves a little deeper. I have been send emails back and forth today, trying to obtain clarification of CellFind's behaviour and response to my enquiries. The last email I got reads as follows:

Dear Mr Edwards
Confirmation: Your wife’s number was added to our internal Do Not Call when you spoke to Carla yesterday. Your number was added this morning after you responded to my initial e-mail.
[Thanks for letting me know. No previous emails or phone calls confirmed this, and no SMS messages have been sent to my phone]
Cellfind notified you/your wife on at least 12 occasions via SMS of the changes. [Earlier in the day you told me that you had only sent 4 messages on 30-11-2007 and 2 on 10-04-2008. I wonder when the other 6 were sent, if at all?] I cannot speak for them but Autopage as a rule notify every customer, every time a new service is added to their account (Also via SMS).

Please tell me what in your view would be adequate:

• We have added both you and your wife to our exclusion list
  
• I’ve also ensured that your details have been added to Autopage and Digicall’s lists
• We have/will refund you in full
• We have apologized (All three companies) in person [All the apologies have been conditional, and in private.]
  
• The Sales Agent has been fired [How convenient. When? Who?]
  
• We have checked our processes to ensure we exclude DMA Do Not Calls to the best of our abilities [How do you do this when there are no ID numbers in your lists and the DMA works with ID numbers?]
  
• We have checked our processes to ensure we exclude our own Do Not Calls [Earlier today you admitted that this was not done in November]
  
• We have removed the services from your account
• We have sent you all the information we have available [I am still waiting for replies to numerous questions not addressed here, for a copy of the sales script and the audio recording]
  

Let me ensure [sic] you that I take this very seriously and even though in our view, we are not in contravention of any law, we have made every effort possible to ensure we don’t have a repeat occurrence and have provided you with as much assistance as humanly possible. So, please let me know what you see as adequate?

Thank you,
Niel Barnard
Chief Executive Officer

Cellfind (PTY) LTD
Tel: 011-8488200
Fax: 011-8488205

Since you ask, Mr Barnard, it would be helpful if you actually stopped ducking and diving and pushing responsibility onto someone else. Autopage did not make the call or send the first 4 SMS messages. Each one of those messages violates the ECT Act, even though you claim you didn't know that I should have been on your list. That was due to your negligence, not mine. Ignorance is no excuse. A thief who gets caught with the stolen goods is still a thief, even if he says "sorry" and gives the goods back.
Secondly, adding someone onto your database without their permission is dishonest, and expecting them to opt out is even more so. In fact it's a bloody cheek, and not the best way to treat your customers. The correct option is "Opt-in", where customers confirm that they WANT the service, rather than being expected to say if they don't, assuming they heard the question.
Thirdly, your call centre first told me that they had obtained the number from Vodacom, and then the story changed later to Autopage. They have yet to confirm that they did, in fact, supply the number. Who am I supposed to believe?
It's all very well to "fire" the person who called my wife, but when are you going to tell me that your company or Digicall made any attempt to contact ALL the people this person subscribed, to make sure they were aware of paying for the service. This could be done by sending an SMS to all the "subscribers", asking them to confirm that they still WANT the service. Clearly this did not happen because we did not receive any messages "several months ago" when the alleged bad apple was "fired".
Either your company is completely incompetent and cavalier in its approach to customer privacy; or you are systematically exploiting loopholes and using convenient excuses to pacify irate customers while you continue to deduct money on a monthly basis from thousands of unsuspecting consumers. I don't know which of the two it is, but neither is a good idea.
If you are genuinely concerned about people being subscribed without their knowledge or permission, then change your business model to an "opt-in" one, and send an SMS to all your existing subscribers asking them to confirm that they still want the service. Also, publish an apology on your web site for the inconvenience caused by your current dodgy practices. Then I'll believe you. Until then, CellFind is the company who got caught with its hands in the cookie jar.

Update Monday 14 th April: Autopage company policy is that they don't give out lists of numbers to anyone. What do you say to that, Mr Barnard? You were very vague about who you got the numbers from.

Update 21 November 2008: It seems that their practices have not changed. Here is an article from the Independent Online web site.

Look4me and Look4Help Billing Fraud and Privacy Violations | Autopage MD calls | CellFind caught out again

Look4Me and Look4Help Billing Fraud and Illegal Privacy Violations

In November a call centre agent phoned my wife's cell phone and offered her services called "Look4Me" and "Look4Help". We don't like marketing calls and she did not agree to anything. Even so, we started getting billed for this service, in spite of the fact that no permission was obtained from the account holder, i.e. me, violating AutoPage's own policy on customer accounts.
So I called AutoPage (0860 23 2424) and they promised to cancel the service. I also asked for a refund. Judging by the complaints on HelloPeter, I am not the only one to be billed in this way. As far as I can tell this is a case of fraud.
Then I called the Look4Help call centre for on 086 010 5774, and was told that Vodacom had supplied them with my wife's number. Later I received an email from Carla Leggatt who claimed that AutoPage had supplied them with the number. Since AutoPage has done this before, I am not surprised, but now CellFind have added an ECT Act violation to their billing fraud. By phoning a number that is already marked as a Do Not Call (both by Autopage and the Direct Marketing Association), they violated the ECT Act, and the penalty for this is 1 year in jail, with no option of a fine.
What also gets me is that at no point was I, as the account holder, notified, either by mail, email or SMS, that we had been signed up for this service, and it was only because I checked my cell phone bill that I noticed the problem. Scumbags like this should rot in jail, and I am considering charges against them for both fraud and privacy violations, unless they make a public apology, preferably in the national newspapers, and request anyone else billed in this way to contact them for a refund.
Update Friday 10am: Niel Barnard from CellFind confirmed that the details were obtained from AutoPage, and admitted that they did not check the data against the DMA's list. He has promised to send me a copy of the recording of the original call. I spoke to the secretary for the MD for AutoPage, who put me through to customer services without really listening to my enquiry. I spoke to Andre Geboers at Digicall, the call centre company in Cape Town (021-405-1425), and he explained that they only get cell numbers from AutoPage, not ID numbers, so they can't really do any checks against the DMA list. It seems to me like a deliberate loophole to avoid prosecution, and the call verification process sounds a little vague. I have asked for a copy of the "script" used by the call centre agents, to see how well it complies with the DMA's Code of Conduct.
Update Friday 12noon: Neil Barnard informs me that

The person who spoke to your wife has in actual fact been fired a few months ago. I have an agreement with Digicall that any transgression of the script, etc will lead to an immediate dismissal of the offending agent on their side.

How convenient. Employ a temp worker for a few months (say November and December), sign up as many people as possible, legally or not, and then when anyone complains tell them that the person was fired. But they cannot tell me who this person was, or whether any of the people he/she called have been contacted to confirm that they did, in fact, agree to the service. So the firing does not absolve the company of the ECT Act violations or the billing fraud, for which the company as a whole is responsible.
Then there is the question of the SMS "confirmation" messages. They sent 4, all at 2007-11-30 11:50:50, shortly after calling my wife:

• Look4help is designed to help you when you need it most. Please reply to this sms with the way you would like to setup eg. WWW, WAP, SMS or call 0860105774
• Welcome to Look4help, a panic button on your cellphone & costs only R12.08 per month, easy setup details to follow. To unsubscribe sms STOP to 31888
• Look4me is designed to help keep your loved ones safe. Please reply to this sms with the way you would like to setup eg. WWW, WAP, SMS or call 0822360919
• Welcome to Look4me, a service which allows you 2 track cellphones & costs only R11.13 per month, easy setup details to follow -sms unsubscribe to 31888 to stop

So if you don't get the messages, ignore them, or just delete them as spam, you have effectively "agreed" to their service by not doing anything. Not only is this dishonest and unethical, it's also a violation of the DMA's Code of Conduct.
Update Monday 14 th April: Autopage company policy is that they don't give out lists of numbers to anyone.

Look4me and Look4Help Billing Fraud and Privacy Violations | Autopage MD calls | CellFind caught out again