Canning Vale SMS king taken to task by ACCC

Allegations of misleading and deceptive conduct against a Canning Vale adult entertainment operator have led to a series of undertakings being given to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

Eugeni Yurievich Tsvetnenko has provided a written undertaking to the ACCC not to misrepresent his company Mobile Adverts in future advertising, with respect to either services provided or their price. He will also attend trade practices training and implement a compliance program to ensure breaches of the Trade Practices Act do not occur.

Mr Tsvetnenko landed in hot water after advertising SecureDate, an adult entertainment service on which operators converse with customers using mobile phone short messaging services (SMS), in the "She seeks Him" section of a Perth classifieds newspaper and its adjoining website.

According to the ACCC, the advertisements represented SecureDate as a personal introduction and dating service which allowed customers to contact the persons appearing there for possible introduction and dating. The advertisements also indicated that the maximum cost of a call to the service was $4.99, and that individual profiles could be placed on the service.

Mr Tsvetnenko advised the ACCC that the company had no facility to list profiles, and that the company was not a personal introduction service, but rather that the profiles listed were for "entertainment chat purposes only".

Customers using the SecureDate service were charged a total of $5 when sending an SMS and receiving a response SMS while using the service.

ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel said consumers should be vigilant of any terms or conditions and charges applied when using SMS and other mobile phone services.

"The ACCC will not hesitate to take swift and decisive action where vulnerable consumers are exposed to unfair or misleading advertising tactics," he said.