Consumer Authority issues warning about Valentine messages

In anticipation of Valentine's Day, many text messaging service providers are extremely active. On Valentine's Day many young people in particular receive and send love letters and messages, often anonymous. Many text messaging service providers are quick to respond to this trend, with a potential consequence that consumers unwittingly take out a subscription.

Many websites for young people, such as MSN and Hyves, have advertisements from text messaging service providers. Many of these advertisements are packaged in such a way that it would appear that you have received a personal message (in your mailbox) with your 'anonymous' love messages. There are all sorts of variations on these types of messages. For example, there are messages which you can use to find out whether your relationship will be a success, or a horoscope where you can find out whether the person you have a crush on also feels the same about you.

These messages, however, are not ones directed to you personally, but standard messages with just one aim: to get you to pay for a text messaging subscription on your mobile. If you don't want to, don't enter your mobile phone number and do not reply to any text messages which ask you to text OK to a four-digit shortcode.

You can find out on the SMS-Gedragscode site how you can unsubscribe from a specific service. You can also unsubscribe your mobile number via the text messaging service filter website from all offers of text messaging services.

• SMS Gedragscode (in Dutch)
• SMS Dienstenfilter (in Dutch)

The Consumer Authority is giving priority in 2009 to tackling text messaging services. The Authority has already imposed fines on three occasions on providers of text messaging services which employ misleading sales practices.