Four-wheel drive and camping accessory retailer Outdoor Supacentre (trading as 4WD Supacentre) has been fined $302,500 for sending more than 83,000 spam texts.

Between December 2022 and May 2023, the company sent 81,698 text messages to recipients without their consent and a further 1575 to customers who had previously unsubscribed, according to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).

The ACMA had also sent five compliance alerts to the retailer after receiving consumer complaints. 

“The alerts serve as a warning that businesses may have compliance issues with their e-marketing systems, so it’s disappointing that Outdoor Supacentre didn’t take the opportunity to adequately address the problems before we had to step in,” said ACMA member Samantha Yorke.

Aside from the fine, the company must appoint an independent consultant to review its compliance with spam rules in the next three years.

According to these rules, businesses have to have consent from consumers to receive e-marketing messages, and the messages must contain an unsubscribe option.

Businesses have paid more than $12.5 million in penalties for breaches of the spam rules over the past 18 months, according to ACMA. Previous violators include Kmart, DoorDash, Ticketek and Uber.