SMS Spammers

As I've mentioned before, I hate SMS Spam.

Last night, I received this unsolicited message. Now, I can try to unsubscribe using STOP ALL - and I have forwarded the text to VSPAM. But that's not enough for me. I want to stop them sending any more spam SMS to anyone.

Let's do a little stalking investigating and find out what we can.

Who Supplies Their SMS Gateway?

The people who provide the SMS gateway services ought to do a better job of policing who uses them.

PhonePayPlus allows us to look up any SMS short code and see to whom it belongs.

We can quickly see that the people responsible for sending the message are

Switchfire Ltd 2nd Floor 66 Wilton Road London SW1V 1DE Tel: 020 7798 2800 support@switchfire.com

I rang them and got them to block my number from their system. I also asked them where they got my number from - they are going to try and find out.

They wouldn't tell me who they are sending the campaign on behalf of, so I set about trying to find out...

Where Do They Live?

The domain name "hoho.me.uk" redirects to the not-exactly-confidence-inspiring "blablabla.me.uk".

A quick WHOIS gives us

    Domain name:
        hoho.me.uk

    Registrant:
        EKASure

    Registrant's address:
        Masons Yard 34 High St
        London
        UK
        SW19 5BY
        United Kingdom

    Registrar:
        eNom, Inc. [Tag = ENOM]
        URL: http://www.enom.com

    Relevant dates:
        Registered on: 07-Oct-2011

    Name servers:
        dns1.registrar-servers.com

The results are identical for blablabla.me.uk

A little dig around Companies House gets their phone number. So, the registrant is EKASure of 34 High St, Wimbledon, telephone +44 208 946 6739. Main URL http://www.ekas.co.uk/.

Who Provides Their Web Presence?

Again, from the WHOIS, and a little gentle pinging, we can see who the domains were registered and hosted with.

I've sent some abuse reports.

Other Complaints

PhonePayPlus are the regulators for these services, they have a handy complaints form.

Who Is Behind This?

Although I can't find out who has authorised the sending of these spam messages, it would appear that the person who has registered all these dodgy sites is one "Stephen Clive Hedley Jennings".

Various official filings have him either as "Stephen Jennings" or "Clive Jennings".

Jennings - who is the owner of HotSexChat.info among many others - is the director of several companies.

A phone call to the Ekas offices confirmed that - although they are accountants - they do register domains for some of their clients.

I've dropped Mr Jennings a mail, linking to this blog post, to try and find out more information.