The Communications Regulator, ComReg, has brought a prosecution against communications company Kaleyra over breaches related to wrongly imposed charges for premium rate services.
The Dublin District Court heard that 9,500 mobile phone customers were wrongly charged €520,000 for premium rate services that they did not sign up for.
The issue arose in August 2021 and continued until January 2022.
The court heard that a malware incident led to so-called 'spoofing' which saw customers' numbers being falsely signed up for premium rate services.
ComReg compliance operations manager Miriam Kilraine said the premium rate content was typically games, competitions, fitness and diet plans, or adult content.
One account wrongly signed up belonged to a SIM card used in security gates.
As a premium service aggregator, Kaleyra was accused by ComReg of not having adequate internal procedures in place, of not having sufficient refund procedures and of failing to notify ComReg.
ComReg told the court that the issues should have been detected sooner because of the large volume of premium service requests happening on consecutive days from customers with similar phone numbers.
Counsel for Kaleyra told the court that the issues were linked to an industry-wide malware incident, that the company expressed its sincere regret that people had been wrongly billed and that all affected customers have been refunded.
The court heard that the company has exited the Irish market as a result of the incident.
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Kaleyra pleaded guilty to 22 charges relating to breaches of the Communications Regulation Act.
Judge Anthony Halpin said that the company had been a victim as a result of the malware incident and had put their hands up and pleaded guilty.
He said Kaleyra did drag their heels somewhat when it came to notifying ComReg but not to the extent that it caused any further suffering to customers.
He said he would spare the company a conviction and ordered it to pay €5,000 to charity.
Barbara Delaney, Director of Retail and Consumer Services with ComReg gave her reaction to the ruling outside the court saying that ComReg takes these matters very seriously in terms of consumer protection.
"The outcome, we would feel, didn't reflect the serious nature of what had happened," Ms Delaney said.
