DigitalHub/Enterprise Ireland Site wrote: Zamano, a leading provider of digital entertainment to mobile devices, was founded in Dublin in 2000, and has been located in The Digital Hub since January 2004. Initially locating in the Digital Depot building, a business incubator run by the Digital Hub Development Agency, and Enterprise Ireland, Zamano are one of the first significant digital media companies to graduate from The Digital Hub’s incubation space and enter the “high growth scaling division”.* From humble beginnings in 2001 Zamano grew and by the time they moved to The Digital Hub’s incubator space in January 2004 they had 16 employees. Zamano benefited from enterprise support from both Enterprise Ireland and The Digital Hub. According to John O’ Shea, MD of Zamano, “The worst thing you can do is take out a long term lease on an office and then in a year you’ve outgrown it and have to get a new lease and infrastructure”. With the flexibility to scale with greater ease Zamano’s profitability continued to increase in 2005 and their total number of employees was by now 23. The company was placed second in the Deloitte Fast 50 Rising Star category, a ranking of the 50 fastest growing technology companies in Ireland. In 2006 Zamano moved out of the Digital Depot’s incubation space to a new office in The Digital Hub at 4 St. Catherine’s Lane West. This move, facilitated by The Digital Hub, allowed Zamano to “focus on running the business”, while The Digital Hub put together “the right infrastructure: putting desks, phones and net access in place” according to O’Shea. Their Digital Hub location has also provided Zamano with near at hand customers from the Digital Hub’s enterprise cluster of like minded companies – they have 5 customers in the vicinity of the campus – and can remain close to other potential customers and suppliers of their products and services In 2006 Zamano expanded into the Australian market and significantly they floated on the alternative investment market (AIM) in London on the 31st of October. Zamano’s admission to AIM raised the profile of the company, and it was followed by their listing on the Irish Enterprise Exchange (IEX) on 26th of February 2007. Importantly Zamano’s IPO has aided further strategic acquisitions, the most recent being Red Circle Technologies Limited, their fifth acquisition and second in 2007 alone. 2007 also saw Zamano rank number 2 in the Deloitte Technology Fast 50. Zamano continues to expand into new territories and increase investment in new technology. They are currently focusing on the scaling of their SMS business, the ongoing development of new WAP services and the growing demand for 3G mobile video services. Zamano can avail of doorstep access to leading edge research that The Digital Hub offers: They are currently taking part in a mobile TV project which is facilitated in The Digital Hub by the Digital Media Forum, with the express intention of bringing various stakeholders together to look at the wider possibilities and issues of Mobile TV and how it can appeal to a wide audience. Zamano now employ a staff of 37 in The Digital Hub. Zamano is now a leading provider of mobile services to UK, Australian and Irish mobile operators, such as Orange, Telstra, O2 and 3 Mobile among others. Beside these business partners, some of Zamano’s other customers include RTE.ie, Vivas Health, and Buy and Sell. This fast growing Irish Digital Media company is just one example of the enterprise focus of The Digital Hub. Zamano has benefited from not only the state of the art office and ICT infrastructure, but also from the business opportunities The Digital Hub brings. Zamano, 4 St. Catherine's Lane West, The Digital Hub, Dublin 8, e. sales@zamano.com, t: +353 (0) 1 488 5820, www.zamano.com * As defined by Enterprise Ireland
Tribune wrote: A COMPANY given grant aid of €311,000 by Enterprise Ireland has been fined more than GBP£200,000 in the UK in relation to so-called "premium text services". Zamano Limited, which is based in the Digital Hub in Dublin, has had 13 adjudications made against it by the British regulator PhonepayPlus. However, the company, in which Enterprise Ireland is still a significant shareholder, said that while it had paid the fines – all of the money had since been recouped. It said all of the adjudications involved third-party providers and that Zamano had not been the subject of a complaint since this summer. So-called premium text services have proved controversial and involve mobile phone users registering for ringtones, quizzes, competitions, games and other services. Many mobile phone owners believe that it is a once-off service only to discover later that it actually operates on a subscription basis. Consumers are frequently billed up to €10 a month even if they are not actively using the service and then have to personally cancel the service. Zamano said they had instituted a review of operations this year and were now actively turning away business who would not sign up to their code. They said they had not been the subject of a complaint since this summer as a result. A statement said: "The premium rate services industry in which Zamano operates in the UK is regulated by PhonepayPlus and Zamano is obliged to follow its Code of Practice. "Over 100 million text messages are sent from Zamano's technology platform annually, either directly from Zamano to the end user or indirectly by a number of third party service providers operating on Zamano's platform. Despite such high volumes just 13 adjudications have been made by PhonepayPlus relating to breaches of its code of practice".
El Camino wrote: » A new bill has been published in the last week or so which is going to give greater powers to ComReg and RegTel to supervise and regulate this area... About time!! Hopefully this increased regulation will result in a clamp down on these awful practices.http://www.oireachtas.ie/documents/bills28/bills/2009/5109/b5109d.pdf
MullingarMan wrote: » Can I convert my anger into action?
blueirishangel wrote: » Celldorado have nothing to do with Zamano.
ludwit wrote: » While my phone keypad was unlocked I unknowingly accessed Planet 3 on my 3 Mobile phone. At the top of Planet 3 is an advert for FUNMOBILE. Again while my phone was unlocked this was selected and went through to the FUNMOBILE website. On the website there is only one link which is to subscribe. Shortly after this was accidentally pressed I received a text message from FUNMOBILE saying I had subscribed to their services at 4.50E a week and 1.50E a text message.
ludwit wrote: » While my phone keypad was unlocked I unknowingly accessed Planet 3 on my 3 Mobile phone.
sant2910 wrote: » They have taken € 20 from my mobile. I complaint to Regtel and they asked me to contact service provider. Up on contacting the Blinck mobile customer care I received a reply form them today, it says;Dear Customer, Thank you for your email. In your email, you have stated that you have not requested our service. The only way to initiate a subscription is to carry out the instructions provided to you in our advertising. Upon receipt of your confirmation message, the subscription was activated. We have assisted you in providing the date and times your phone was used to order our service. Given the above, we can confirm that your phone was used to order our service without your knowledge and without your prior consent. We would like to suggest that you try and locate the third party that ordered our service, and may we suggest that you take appropriate measures to prevent this from happening again. Please note that you are responsible for all use of your phone, even if it was not authorized by you. Please feel free to contact us if you have any additional questions. Yours sincerely, John.T Blinck Customer Care Team What should I do now??
foggy_lad wrote: » did they give you dates and times that they say you used their services? if so then you need to contact your mobile provider and get them to confirm that messages were sent from your phone at these times/dates and if not get back onto RegTel who will take action for you.
sant2910 wrote: » Thanks foggy_lad. I contact Vodafone; they expressed their inability to provide the details. Also Blinck mobile too could not give me the details of product they sent to me. What a world...D=
Raiser wrote: » I like Cormies idea. I wonder could you just walk up to them and ask them if they'd like to avail of your free service...... Then just repeatedly kick them in the face until they scream stop.
Thoie wrote: » I'd prefer if they were repeatedly kicked in the face until they screamed UNSUB.
damona wrote: » The lady the first day said it was done through a company called eirborne, I forgot the name of them today when I rang back but I asked who it was done through and the lady on the phone said she didn't have access to that info, I said the last lady in the same department was able to tell me, so why couldn't she. Then I remembered it was eirborne. I googled and saw eirborne was bought by Zamano! i used to work for a telecom company and i have seen this over and over again but i must correct what has been said above. An agent wud not hold back info regarding the company from u, actually they are glad to give it to you, maybe the company is making money and happy enough for it to continue but d agents arent. who d hell wants to take 20 calls a day about this. everyone screaming about there money and saying its a scam, and d agents agree wit u but cant say anything as its within d law and the calls are recorded. d telecom networks id say make about 40 - 50% on them sms as otherwise it would ccost them too much money and man power having to deal wit the calls. i cud never get a straight answer to what that exact percentage is, managers dont like to answer dat question. Over d yr 1/2 wit d company i have only come across one person who got money back from the premium sms company but he had to be very persistant and the sms company were able to blacklist him from their services. so thats an option but if u are contacting them try email or get regtel to call them and get them to ring u back as their usually premium rate numbers u have to ring which are pricey. Changing the home webpage is very good idea cuz u can still get ur pic messages. im on here 2nite to get everyone to make a complaint as the more complaints the more likely the will inforce stricter legistlation. d mobile companies shud b held responsible also as they allow acess for dese companies to take ur credit or put charges on ur bill. crazy that u cant bar ur number from getting dese and even moving nets does nothing u have to unsubscribe(half d time theres no 5 digit code only web address) or change ur number(really dont want to have to keep doing dis!). d quick link buttons on handsets are programmed by manufacturer as far as im aware which means they have to be aware of what their doing also. it makes me so mad the way they can get away wit it. my mams just been caught for a couple of them aswell. i have no idea hoe many theyve taken and quite conveniently the records for prepay wit most nets will only go back 6 - 8 weeks so uve no way of finding out how long they went on for before that! every1 shud complain straight to company or regulator but if ur ringing the networks please keep in mind that the agents are just as mad as u about dese sms. why wudnt dey be dey have to listen day in day out to people complaining about d sms and cant just give the money back. its monitored heavily as far as i can remember by d bigwigs. u could even start going on about the RSS feeds that come pre-installed on ur handset and automatically connect u to the web without u even setting them up. dats what happen on my new fone and i wud never of noticed except i read my bill and im used to dealing with this type of query. sickened!! thank god data is cheaper nowa days cuz i was roaming!! well i was still in ireland but up d north and i was charged for roaming bloody disgrace! i really dont think i shud be liable for dose charges and i got them refunded but only because it was about 9e if it was 200e i wudnt have a chance cuz d agent wud have to pass by manager and theyd give u nothing probably. it really p@&ses me rite off that they class the north as a different country. whats dat about? id love to know if it costs them anything more since they are using theyr partner nets in other countries. once u work for one of dese companies u never again take them at face value, u never get anything for nothing, my friend recently got a call asking if he was alrite with his plan and he was tied again to d company for 12 mnths, how can that be ok. contracts for nothing!! i wudnt be surprised by em again after dat, it takes d biscuit.:mad:
