A new system aimed at clamping down on fraudulent text messages is experiencing significant difficulties.
The Communications Regulator has apologised to phone users who have received legitimate messages labelled as being a “likely scam”.
The scheme is supposed to protect people from opening or replying to fake messages.
The glitch has affected messages from trusted senders, including hospitals, and organisations such as VHI, AIB, along with many others.
Irish consumers have been bombarded with scam text messages for years many trying to trick people out of money.
George Merrigan, Director of Market Framework with Comreg, said the issue is the result of technical problems with a number of mobile operators and companies who manage bulk messages on behalf of others.
He said: “The telecommunications industry is a web of many networks, so you can have a small number of industry players having some technical implementation issues and that can sort of affect others, as a consequence.”
Mr Merrigan apologised to customers and asked them to bear with the company while the “teething issues” with the scheme are worked out.
“So, so we don’t believe the root of the issue is terribly large, but we realise the confusion it’s causing for the end consumer at the moment who is our number one concern.”
“Our focus is on the root cause of the issue and where it is being experienced at the end of the line, which is the consumer but our understanding is a small number of industry players that are having the technical implementation issues.”
Text messages labelled as being “likely scams” are due to be completely blocked from October.
There is concern that important information could be missed if the problem is not fixed quickly.
Comreg says it hopes to have the problem fixed in the coming days.
However, for now people are being urged to be cautious about messages labelled as being a scam and not to click on links contained in these messages.
