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The European Commission warned children and teenagers on Thursday to beware of mobile telephone ring-tone scams after hundreds of Internet sites were found to be charging too much for the services.
The warning came after a probe found that 80 percent of the more than 550 Internet sites in the 27 EU nations, Norway and Iceland, could be breaching EU consumer laws, half of them targeting young people.
"Far too many people are falling victim to costly surprises from mysterious charges, fees and ring-tone subscriptions they learn about for the first time when they see their mobile phone bill," EU Consumer Commissioner Meglena Kuneva said in a statement.
"There will be Europe wide enforcement action to track down each of these traders. But we need to get a clear message out particularly to teenagers and children: be on your guard. It's all about the small print," she said.
Sales of European ring-tones were estimated to total 691 million euros in 2007, accounting for some 29 percent of all "mobile content" sold for Europe's roughly half a billion mobile phones.
The commission said that seven countries -- Norway, Finland, Sweden, Latvia, Iceland, Romania, Greece -- will publish the names of the websites which they found to have irregularities.
Breaches included unclear price information, where prices were incomplete or did not include taxes, or contracts that did not make customers aware that they were signing up to a subscription.
Many websites did not provide some of the required contact information about the trader, while others had misleading information or details hidden in small print, the commission said.
Young people were targeted with advertising for ring-tones and wallpapers by using cartoon or television characters.
Brussels said that companies would be contacted by national authorities and asked to clarify or correct the problems. They face fines or closure of the websites if they fail to do so.
-- AFP
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