There has been a thread already about premium rate numbers on mobiles - where you phone a number and then have to type stop in order not to receive any more mobile messages costing you 50p or more each message.

A newspaper article about someone who received a phone bill for £1000 for a similar service has appeared recently as well.

I made the big mistake of responding to an 82050 quiz program some time ago - kept receiving messages thereafter without realising they were costing me, until I did a balance check and found I was paying for nothing. Dialled and typed stop as instucted and my problems were over ...... hmmmm

Guess what - they were not. I have been charged £6 which is a monthly fee for being a member of 82228. What the hell is 82228? I have no idea. I have never phoned or texted this number. There is no record on orange of me texting this number. What is going on?

Orange cannot help. I have to phone the company 82228 is run by, which just happens to be the same service as 82050 which I unsubscribed from. Apparently I should get refunded the membership fee.

Why the hell should I have to spend all my time phoning companies to get me removed from services I have not asked for? What next? Can I expect to receive a bill for £20 for not joining 81118?

It seems the only real alternative now is to change my number and network and never use the phone to call anyone I do not know.

My thanks to Orange, and to those companies who are allowed to set up this con.

An I alone in this continuing saga of mobile rip offs?

Dragon

For anyone else who might be thinking of replying to one of the text numbers on TV or in a magazine. 99% of them say in tiny writing or on a website somewhere that you are subscribing to a service and will be charged each month. All the crazy frog ads say this and the quiz ones too.

I think there should be a mobile user-group to create the level of clout which individual people dont usually have on their own unless they are incredibly wealthy with lots of connections

It's about time this practice received the same attention as pyramid selling did some years ago - and became illegal :mad:

Originally posted by Strix
It's about time this practice received the same attention as pyramid selling did some years ago - and became illegal :mad:

Quite agree strix. It's a disgraceful practice. Not owning a mobile phone I didnt realise how much was involved until I saw a SF post where they were being charged as much as £4.50 per shot just to receive nothing. That quickly mounts up. However as with everything else nothing will be done until people make voluminous noise in an attempt to turn back the tide of inertia which saturates the regulatory systems.

Dragon,

Call Orange, tell them you had nothing to do with it and as a customer they are supposed to protect you from such scams. Then if they say no you have to do it, cancel your contract there and then.

Say if you found your credit card was being charged for something you hadn't bought, then you would be protected so why can Orange wash there hands with this when it’s exactly the same thing when you think about it!

Don’t let them walk all over you.

Originally posted by march
For anyone else who might be thinking of replying to one of the text numbers on TV or in a magazine. 99% of them say in tiny writing or on a website somewhere that you are subscribing to a service and will be charged each month. All the crazy frog ads say this and the quiz ones too.

i have to agree with this post, my niece was copped in a similar venture for horoscopes but as she was payg it didnt take long before service was stopped.
OFCOm state that all you need to do is send "stop" to the same number, if this doesn't work it isn't the fault of the network provider. it is our responsibility to check out what you agree to - all ads do state that there is a weekly fee for receiving downloads.

Originally posted by Dragon
There has been a thread already about premium rate numbers on mobiles - where you phone a number and then have to type stop in order not to receive any more mobile messages costing you 50p or more each message.

A newspaper article about someone who received a phone bill for £1000 for a similar service has appeared recently as well.

I made the big mistake of responding to an 82050 quiz program some time ago - kept receiving messages thereafter without realising they were costing me, until I did a balance check and found I was paying for nothing. Dialled and typed stop as instucted and my problems were over ...... hmmmm

Guess what - they were not. I have been charged £6 which is a monthly fee for being a member of 82228. What the hell is 82228? I have no idea. I have never phoned or texted this number. There is no record on orange of me texting this number. What is going on?

Orange cannot help. I have to phone the company 82228 is run by, which just happens to be the same service as 82050 which I unsubscribed from. Apparently I should get refunded the membership fee.

Why the hell should I have to spend all my time phoning companies to get me removed from services I have not asked for? What next? Can I expect to receive a bill for £20 for not joining 81118?

It seems the only real alternative now is to change my number and network and never use the phone to call anyone I do not know.

My thanks to Orange, and to those companies who are allowed to set up this con.

An I alone in this continuing saga of mobile rip offs?

Dragon
There is a website dedicated to this sort of thing I just can't remember the address. I found it my logging onto my own personal provider (Vodaphone) and it gave advice on what to do if you recieve these messages. Basically you can type the number in and it gives you details (numbers and addresses) of the company that actually runs it along with methods of stopping it. If you continue to be charged then you have case for reporting them so someone who's name I forget..again...I'll look into is this afternoon for you and see if I can come up with some numbers or names

The saga continues. I called Orange. They said it was nothing to do with them and as it was an outside company I could be charged whatever this company decided to charge me. They did give me a phone number for one of the 5 digit services.

I phones this and got a recorded message with options that allowed me to cancel that service - again costing me.

Aha - another 5 digit number on my phone. So that is 2 I have unsubscribed from and a new one popped up. I only used the 82050 number and I did receive a text saying I was unsubscribed from all their services.

So - back onto orange - telling them I had phoned the number they supplied and received an automated response. They again said there was nothing they could do about it and gave me the number of ICSTIS - like the telephone watchdog.

I phoned these and was told that my telephone company - orange - had to provide me with a none automated number so I could talk to a real person. They are apparently supposed to have this service by law.

So back onto orange who told me they only had the one number and it was not their fault. I told them what ICSTIS had said and was told - well we cannot conjure numbers out of thin air.

My only option seems to be to get a second number to put credit on, keeping well away from orange, and use my old number for incoming only. See how long orange or the company will keep trying to get none-existant money from me then.

What a game of toy soldiers!

Dragon

i also discovered i was being charged £1.50 by orange for messages that I didn't want about ugrading my mobile, I called orange to find out who they were coming from and apparently it was a company that sends messages based on info you or someone else has provided usually through the internet.

Anyway they told me to txt STOP to the number and then the co is legally obliged not to send anymore, I haven't had any since then and Orange were nice enough not to charge me for any of the ones I'd received last month and have credited my bill:clap: :clap:

I'm sure that it can't technically be possible to put a charge on your bill without you doing something. I realise it would be illegal but more criminals would be doing this if you could.

As I stated - I did the stop thing and messages stopped from the 82050 number.

Then from nowhere I got 82040. Did the stop thing again and got the same reply "You have now been removed from all our services"

These were 50p per message numbers.

Now I have 82228 - and have stopped that one as well.

Where are they coming from? Can just any company decide to find your number and start charging you willy nilly? I have not subscribed to anything. Now waiting for the next number to appear.

Dragon

The problem is, march, that all the services have small print.
By calling them the first time you are subscribing to a service that they can charge for. It is sharp practice, but not yet illegal.
Hopefully, they can be forced to turn the small print into large print.


What is wrong though is their failure to accept STOP messages and the failure of the system to enable you to prove that you sent the STOP.

Originally posted by Dragon

Where are they coming from? Can just any company decide to find your number and start charging you willy nilly? I have not subscribed to anything. Now waiting for the next number to appear.

Dragon

I don't know how I ended up getting them, I never call for ringtones or any charging services so the only thing that I can think of is that it must come from details i entered on the internet.

The trouble is that as our phones get more sophisticated they end up facing the same problems as a computer - e.g viruses and spam, hopefully before long we will be able to get the same kind of protection now available for p.c's

In the meantime maybe try asking to speak to a manager at orange and tell them how bad the prob is and how you are now looking at having to cancel your contract. At least try and get a contrustive answer from them as the service provider - it doesn't seem like this is an isolated problem.

Good luck.

I would imagine in your case the first one you subscribed to will have stated somewhere that you were also subscribing to the other services. They probably said somewhere that T&Cs could be obtained on request or something similar. They know full well they are conning people though by hiding this though.

A company couldn't just make charges to a a random number as by now someone would have done this to every phone in the country.

Originally posted by harris
i also discovered i was being charged £1.50 by orange for messages that I didn't want about ugrading my mobile, I called orange to find out who they were coming from and apparently it was a company that sends messages based on info you or someone else has provided usually through the internet.

Anyway they told me to txt STOP to the number and then the co is legally obliged not to send anymore, I haven't had any since then and Orange were nice enough not to charge me for any of the ones I'd received last month and have credited my bill:clap: :clap:

On the basis of harris' post above, I'd be inclined to send Orange a copy under cover of a letter to clarify why they are providing you with a lesser standard of service.:D

It's your own fault and nobody elses. Anybody that wants Crazy frog/latest crap joke/wallpaper/screensaver/quiz/Big Brother news/etc. are mad:suspect: You're just buying junk! and you look a prat when your phone doesn't ring but farts & burps:loopy:
If you want to stop being conned then stop using your phone like an 8yr old.

P.S. This thread isn't aimed at anyone in particular.

Why don't you read Trever? It is clearly stated that none of these services was signed up for.

Something about missing words and paragraphs in that response.

So - no way am I accepting responsability for that one.

Dragon

A mate of mine was stungin exactly the same way, downloaded one 'free' ringtone and, 5 weeks later billed for £120 for received txt messages advertising other products!

Evil scum :mad:

Originally posted by Dragon

I made the big mistake of responding to an 82050 quiz program some time ago

I did read. Not getting at you though, it's just people seem to want the latest thing on their phone just 'cos it's the latest thing.

eg. "Get the latest continuous tone ringtone and one pixel in the middle of the screen screensaver". They'd make millions:thumbsup: and then charge you £4.50 a day for no reason.

I kind of agree with Trever on this topic, even though it was me mate what was stung - it is a tax on stupidity...

Originally posted by Don_Kiddick
I kind of agree with Trever on this topic, even though it was me mate what was stung - it is a tax on stupidity...


I also kind of agree even though I was trying to be more sympathetic earlier. if I ever get stung and REALLY didn't sign up for anything even something unrelated I would be cross. However I aren't going to send someone a text that binds me to a whole load of conditions I haven't read to get a "free" ringtone. You should be able to stop them but it's your own fault really. Would you sign a contract somebody waved under you nose in the street for a free sticker without reading it?

Originally posted by march
I also kind of agree even though I was trying to be more sympathetic earlier. if I ever get stung and REALLY didn't sign up for anything even something unrelated I would be cross. However I aren't going to send someone a text that binds me to a whole load of conditions I haven't read to get a "free" ringtone. You should be able to stop them but it's your own fault really. Would you sign a contract somebody waved under you nose in the street for a free sticker without reading it?

If terms and conditions apply the provider should provide customers with clearly legible hard copy of T&C; it is far worse if it is unrelated to the original. As such undesirable business practice seems rife, perhaps OFT and Trading Standards should investigate to curtail this abusive trading practice. CAB has the power to issue "Stop Now Orders" and I cant understand why they remain silent. Unless I have misread posts on this and other Forum threads, it woudl seem these companies need tighter regulation.

If you record kids tv and replay it before ringing the 82050 number displayed to answer a quiz then you may catch any small print or rules and conditions. If you know them - let me know because I saw none.

What happened was there were three questions and you entered the quiz by texting one of three answers. Thats it. No - "We will continue to text you at 50p a time". No - "We will hand out your number to all other 8xxxx companies who can charge you anything they like." and No - "Even if you unsubscribe with us you will still get texts that cost you from our other companies."

I'd like to see this agreement where by membership to one paying service automatically gets you membership of anything a company wishes to charge you for.

Dragon

Just wondered whether the Consumer Credit Distance Selling regs applied in this type of case and if so arent these companies out of order?

Originally posted by Trever
It's your own fault and nobody elses. Anybody that wants Crazy frog/latest crap joke/wallpaper/screensaver/quiz/Big Brother news/etc. are mad:suspect: You're just buying junk! and you look a prat when your phone doesn't ring but farts & burps:loopy:
If you want to stop being conned then stop using your phone like an 8yr old.


I would just like to clarify I do not use my phone like an 8 year old, I have never downloaded any ringtones and i've never entered any quizes etc.. full stop I have never sent a message to one of these 81182 whatever numbers!

I have put my phone number on the internet as part of a notification and I use my number for business so I imagine a large number of people could have it.

What worries me is that my trust has been broken. A number of months ago I received a call from a company claiming they were from Orange and asking me if I wanted an upgrade. At the time I had been looking to change my phone since my contract was up for renewal, I spoke to the guy about my service plan, diff tariffs and models and then he asked me for some details, at that point I got suspicious as Orange always ask for security codes not details.

I had given some of my address when I stopped and said that actually I think i would think about what i wanted would prefer to go into the Orange store. He then became very agitated and I said that I did not think he was really calling from Orange, at this point he went mad and shouted a number of expletives at me before hanging up.

I reported it to Orange who said they would never employ such practices and would always call from a recognisable number not no withheld, they have put a note onto my account to say do not change my handset or tariff without explicit permission from myself.

I just wonder is their anyone else who has experienced such a problem and has anyone been scammed into giving their full details out?