premium texts - how to get money back

Shelca

My wife, an OAP, noticed “Service messages” on her mobile. She didn’t open them for fear they contained viruses. She eventually noticed that her credit was disappearing very fast and contacted Vodafone. They said she was getting premium text messages from a particular company and told her how to unsubscribe. I rang them and they said it wasn’t them, but another company which used their services, said we couldn’t speak to them but took our details and said they’d get back within 4 or 5 working days. I sent an e-mail meantime.

A letter finally arrived saying that a service had been subscribed and not unsubscribed and so a refund wasn’t possible. They enclosed an Activity log showing all the messages they sent. The first one contained a PIN, the website address, costs and unsubscribe instructions. 5 days later, a message came about costs and unsubscribing and then advertising messages began to arrive the next day.

Can anyone explain how this happened? It’s very difficult to try to refute what they are saying without understanding what the procedure is. We didn’t ask for such a service. No one else could have done either. We live alone and no one has access to our computer or my wife’s phone. At our age we are not interested in ringtones or wallpaper! What’s going on? Do they first need to get a subscription message through their website and do they then send a PIN? Do they wait to get the PIN back before the service begins? The Activity Log only showed their text messages but no messages coming from a computer. Could they have sent this PIN message themselves without being asked and then went ahead without it? Is it legal to do this?

Regtel says that they cannot do anything until I’ve contacted the sender so I’m going along with that. I can’t say much more to the company which sent the texts however, without understanding the procedure. Any help would be appreciated. Is there any other way to try to get our money back, Small Claims court for example?

Thanks very much.

Mountjoy Mugger

Try contacting Regtel and see if they've any first hand knowledge of the company. They may offer to mediate.

Doctor DooM

You need to contact these people.

http://www.regtel.ie/


Are you absolutely sure some child had no access to your phone? Pretty much without fail, this is always how this kind of thing happened when I encountered it.

Shelca

Mountjoy Mugger wrote: »

Try contacting Regtel and see if they've any first hand knowledge of the company. They may offer to mediate.

Thanks for that. I didn't make it sufficiently clear that I've already been in touch with them but they want me to contact the company first. This I've done and have been refused but I don't want to go back to Regtel until I've tried every other option.

Shelca

SDooM wrote: »

You need to contact these people.

http://www.regtel.ie/


Are you absolutely sure some child had no access to your phone? Pretty much without fail, this is always how this kind of thing happened when I encountered it.

I am absolutely sure thank you. The grandkids are still very young. I'm sorry that this will seem like a very stupid question but how will a child getting at the phone affect the matter? I thought that subscription was done through the website.

jor el

Shelca wrote: »

I am absolutely sure thank you. The grandkids are still very young. I'm sorry that this will seem like a very stupid question but how will a child getting at the phone affect the matter? I thought that subscription was done through the website.

Usually, it's just a matter of sending a text to the number in question. Could be done by a 5 year old, and has, many times.

Shelca

jor el wrote: »

Usually, it's just a matter of sending a text to the number in question. Could be done by a 5 year old, and has, many times.

That's very helpful thanks, jor el. Does that mean that it's just a matter of hitting Reply to the text which contains the PIN? I can see how easily that could have happened.


Thanks for your help.

slimjimmc

Shelca wrote: »

That's very helpful thanks, jor el. Does that mean that it's just a matter of hitting Reply to the text which contains the PIN? I can see how easily that could have happened.


Thanks for your help.

Possibly, we don't know what the message said. Is the phone new or was it sent for repair recently, somebody else may have subscribed in the shop without her knowledge.

PS : have you checked the Sent messages for any clues?

slimjimmc

Shelca wrote: »

The Activity Log only showed their text messages but no messages coming from a computer. Could they have sent this PIN message themselves without being asked and then went ahead without it?

Can they show you any record of the subscription request? Without it how they can't prove the service was solicited and therefore chargeable.

Sam Vimes

Shelca wrote: »

That's very helpful thanks, jor el. Does that mean that it's just a matter of hitting Reply to the text which contains the PIN? I can see how easily that could have happened.


Thanks for your help.

it would be a matter of just hitting reply but it's illegal for them to send you a message unsolicited. if your method of subscription was clicking a link in a random service message that appeared on your phone then they're in trouble. but if the service message appeared because of something you signed up to they're not

Shelca

slimjimmc wrote: »

Can they show you any record of the subscription request? Without it how they can't prove the service was solicited and therefore chargeable.

Thanks all for taking the time to reply. You have encouraged me to dig a bit deeper to try to see what's going on. From the service provider's website it's clear there is only 1 'service' that it could have been - free text messages (free for €3 every 6 days that is). The subscription method requires the phone number to be entered in a box where there is a message Your PIN will be sent to your mobile as a Text Message. This is the first message shown on the Activity Log. The computer messages are not shown on the Log but it's highly likely they'll insist that the text containing the PIN was only sent on the receipt of the first one.

That leaves only 2 options. Either the company is not being truthful and actually sent unsolicited texts, or someone with access to a computer but also with access to the mobile, entered the details. That had to have been one of us or someone with access to a computer and, importantly, the phone (to get the PIN). If it's the latter, it has to have been deliberate. Someone could easily have entered our number by mistake but they'd need the phone as well.

We did not do it (unfortunately you'll have to take my word for that! It's significant though that having supposedly signed-up and began paying for a text service my wife continued to send texts through Vodafone as usual). No one we can think of would have had access to the phone or would have wanted to do it deliberately (but I can't prove that either!).

If it weren't for the fact that the Internet is awash with complaints about these services I'd write the whole thing off to experience and double our precautions. The only other thing I can do is to challenge the company to produce the computer messages but if they did I wouldn't be competent to know if they were genuine.

Here endeth the lesson. Thanks again all for your patience and help. BTW it's a great Forum.

foggy_lad

Shelca wrote: »

Thanks all for taking the time to reply. You have encouraged me to dig a bit deeper to try to see what's going on. From the service provider's website it's clear there is only 1 'service' that it could have been - free text messages (free for €3 every 6 days that is). The subscription method requires the phone number to be entered in a box where there is a message Your PIN will be sent to your mobile as a Text Message. This is the first message shown on the Activity Log. The computer messages are not shown on the Log but it's highly likely they'll insist that the text containing the PIN was only sent on the receipt of the first one.

That leaves only 2 options. Either the company is not being truthful and actually sent unsolicited texts, or someone with access to a computer but also with access to the mobile, entered the details. That had to have been one of us or someone with access to a computer and, importantly, the phone (to get the PIN). If it's the latter, it has to have been deliberate. Someone could easily have entered our number by mistake but they'd need the phone as well.

We did not do it (unfortunately you'll have to take my word for that! It's significant though that having supposedly signed-up and began paying for a text service my wife continued to send texts through Vodafone as usual). No one we can think of would have had access to the phone or would have wanted to do it deliberately (but I can't prove that either!).

If it weren't for the fact that the Internet is awash with complaints about these services I'd write the whole thing off to experience and double our precautions. The only other thing I can do is to challenge the company to produce the computer messages but if they did I wouldn't be competent to know if they were genuine.

Here endeth the lesson. Thanks again all for your patience and help. BTW it's a great Forum.

you should now go back to RegTel and let them know that the company has refused to refund for service that your wife would not have and did not request or order. they should be able to intervene on your behalf or gave you the information to enable you to handle this yourself.

it may take several weeks or even months to get any refund as that is how these companies operate relying on people to just get fed up and throw in the towel.

Shelca

foggy_lad wrote: »

you should now go back to RegTel and let them know that the company has refused to refund for service that your wife would not have and did not request or order. they should be able to intervene on your behalf or gave you the information to enable you to handle this yourself.

Thanks. I'll do that.

Super Sidious

Yea my mum got the same thing... i'm gonna get onto it in next couple of days and try get a refund myself...

bent thing is when I rang Vodafone they said 25% of their calls are about this...

I've never had a problem with O2 so presume its just Vodafone that gets these text things...

Shelca

flynner13 wrote: »

Yea my mum got the same thing... i'm gonna get onto it in next couple of days and try get a refund myself...

bent thing is when I rang Vodafone they said 25% of their calls are about this...

I've never had a problem with O2 so presume its just Vodafone that gets these text things...

Hi, thanks for the message. We have just had some good news, a cheque this morning returning what my wife had had taken from her phone account.

I started out by contacting Regtel who said we had to approach the company first. We did so and received a flat refusal so we e-mailed them again, with the message prominently copied to Regtel, repeating that my wife had not subscribed to any service and pointing out that as all it took to subscribe was a phone number, anyone could have done it (including themselves, although I said that was only a logical conclusion!). I pointed out that my wife was elderly, not very familiar with PCs and also that the service which had been subscribed to had never been used.

After a few days I contacted Regtel again who said that they had decided to investigate our complaint and asked for a signed letter giving them permission to approach the company. Just as we were about to send that, the cheque arrived.

You might also be interested to know that a Journalist Regtel put me in touch with had a similar experience with another company and got back a very large amount of money.

Good luck with it!

Mountjoy Mugger

Well done. I'm delighted for you both.

Thanks for the update.