Free Message - Black dog

Bombbastic22

I've been getting these messages regularly for years - maybe one a week.

After getting sick of them I rang my service provider and asked how I could stop getting them. They said I was being charged 2.50 for each one of them and I'm like "whut"? I couldn't believe it. They must have extorted hundreds or even thousands from me without my knowledge.

The company are called Black Dog. Surely this kind of carry on is not legal??

phasers

How did you not notice!?

Have you tried texting STOP to the number the messages come from?

booboo88

You probably signed up for it unkowingly, ringtones, comps etc

Bombbastic22

phasers wrote: »

How did you not notice!?

Have you tried texting STOP to the number the messages come from?

Well, I just thought I was talking too much though I did wonder why my credit went so fast. I'm on prepay.

Stopped it now - but anyway- still ridiculous!

Jarren

OP
contact the now

http://www.comreg.ie/contact_us/comreg_contact_details.141.contact.html

coylemj

You probably entered a competition or sent a text message to some promotion company and didn't read the small print.

BTW, there's no implied criticism intended, I often see ads. on TV for psychics live and that type of stuff and you'd need binoculars to read the small print at the bottom of the screen.

Bombbastic22

coylemj wrote: »

You probably entered a competition or sent a text message to some promotion company and didn't read the small print.

BTW, there's no implied criticism intended, I often see ads. on TV for psychics live and that type of stuff and you'd need binoculars to read the small print at the bottom of the screen.

Ah yeah, I know what you mean.

Only thing I can think of is a ring tone I got about 10 years ago.

Jesus, they must have robbed me of thousands. Is that legal? I thought you could only keep someone's details for 3 years under the data protection act??

Bombbastic22

Ah well, if nothing else, maybe this thread will stop more unsuspecting twats like myself getting robbed!

Bombbastic22

jarecki1976 wrote: »

OP
contact the now

http://www.comreg.ie/contact_us/comreg_contact_details.141.contact.html

Can they get me me money back?

Milky bars are on me if they can!

booboo88

Bombbastic22 wrote: »

Can they get me me money back?

Milky bars are on me if they can!

they cant i dont think, and although the terms and conditions are nearly invisible, they are there same happened to me but I only spotted because my parents were paying for my credit at the time, 10euro a week. so you watch ALL your credit

jor el

Bombbastic22 wrote: »

Can they get me me money back?

Milky bars are on me if they can!

Premium services used to be regulated by RegTel, and they were quite good at stopping this kind of thing, and helping get refunds. Since RegTel was rolled into Comreg, I'm not sure how it works now. Comreg are in general (from my own many dealings, and from others on the Broadband forum) quite useless. I would not hold any faith in Comreg heling you get a refund. You should of course try though.

If all else fails, and you can get a complete report of how much you've been charged without your consent, you can take a Small Claims Court case. Get on to your mobile operator to get a statement of how much they have charged you, then submit a claim for a full refund. This may or may not work, but you have nothing to lose.

If the premium operator can prove that you did authorise such payments, you will lose. Might be an idea to contact them first and ask them to show that proof.

freakwencydb

Demand a detailed statement from from the network provider and the service provider , ask them to prove the sequnce of events that caused you to sign up for the service , thats if you did in fact sign up and approve the service .
As the mobile operators are revenue sharing business partners of these guys they may be unwilling to help, persist and hassle them.
Check your phone bill- call log very carefully .
In my case the network operator here supplied falseified opt in details for the phone account of a deceased person of whom they had targeted.
Not very nice people to deal with when they got caught out.



ooh too.

BrianD

There should be a "reminder" notice required by the SP at preset durations e.g. every two months. A free text to say "This is to remind you that you are subscribed to [named service] at €X per day/week/month. You can unsubscribe by ..."

The reason why there is so little regulation in favour of the consumer is that most of these services would disappear over night if there was.

Bombbastic22

No matter what way you look at it - it's still pretty sly sending you all these messages and charging you 2.50 for each one, I mean - who would pay for text messages which are marketing some crap or other?? It's like receiving a bill for every flier that comes in your letterbox.

I often saw in the message that it costs 2.50/5euro to unsubscribe and I always thought - why should I unsubscribe to something I never subscribed to in the first place.

Just think, the guys that are doing this are probably driving around in top of the range Mercs and such. It really is a bit sick.

"Black Dog" is their name - quite fitting of the seedy underhand way in which they do business.