Insurance: Malaysian insurer starts SMS spam marketing campaign

Of all the kinds of intrusive marketing, contact via mobile phone is, perhaps, the one that most raises the hackles.

For marketing people, mobile phones are a boon: they are embedded deep in the user's personal space. They provide an immediacy that no other device comes close to - and they have the advantage that the user is always available to receive the message.

Those are exactly the reasons why mobile phone spam is even more annoying than e-mail spam - and that is even more annoying than direct mail in envelopes.

Maybank's message, being distributed this morning Malaysian time, relates to a service from its takaful (Islamic insurance) motor insurance division - and includes a service to renew car tax on-line and have it delivered to the user's home.

What is not clear is how that division built up its mobile phone mailing list.

Calls to Maybank's media office were unanswered therefore there is no comment from them as to how the list is generated, from what sources and why the company thinks SMS spam is acceptable.

The website referred to in the mail says that the products are part of the Maybank Group and are underwritten by Maybank's Etiqa insurance unit.

In Malaysia, personal information is very badly protected. Although financial institutions are under a statutory duty to keep all customer information confidential, many commercial concerns and even government departments are - to be polite - leaky, particularly in relation to information such as e-mail addresses and telephone numbers which are often used by marketing companies for direct telephone, SMS and e-mail contact.

But the issue is not restricted to Malaysia - it is common to countries where more traditional methods of marketing are not viable, for example because of the lack of landlines (if one takes the dubious idea that unsolicited telephone calls are acceptable) and mail is unreliable - or people don't have an address.

The growth of mobile phones as the primary method of communication amongst young and mobile populations has led to the attraction of SMS - and unsolicited calls to mobiles - as a direct marketing tool.

But victims complain that it is intrusive. Executives, in particular, take great exception to SMS or calls arriving when they are in meetings or, worse, travelling and it's the middle of the night, for example.

"It might be seen as desperation marketing," said one expat living in Malaysia. "I was in a bar with my girlfriend, chatting. A man asked the bar staff for my name and bowled up, calling me by name. He had written his business details on a napkin and handed them to me, saying he had no business card with him. He would not take no for an answer when I told him I was not interested. That was marginally less annoying than being spammed by SMS or unsolicited phone call to my unlisted mobile number. Even clients do not have that number - why would I want salesmen contacting me on it? Surely my private number should be exactly that."

But mobile phone operators say they are powerless to block inbound spam even from known marketing mail services. A manager at Digi, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said "we have no mechanism for allowing users to automatically block senders."

Mobile phone users say that there should be a specific facility that allows them to block known marketing services. A do-not-call register simply will not work in countries where there is little or no regard for the privacy of others. In that, Malaysia is not unusual.

Users say that if financial groups use this kind of marketing then others will follow.

"It's simple," said one recipient of the SMS. "I will never use their services, even if I had been tempted before. If everyone refused to respond to spam, however it is delivered, then the practice would die out. In the case of SMS spam, it's in relative infancy. Consumers have it - literally - in their own hands to stop it spreading. "