Premium services on three network

bfclancy

Is anyone going to tackle this scourge effectively. so it happened me this weekend, 40 euro gone from my three account due to this premium services mullarkey, got onto three and they blocked these type of services from my account but said i have to chase refund myself. So contacted aeus@txtnation.com and again they fobbed me off to the individual premium service providers whom i am now chasing, if i don't get a satisfactory request i will have to pursue with comreg.

i will get my money back cos i will pursue but how many people don't pursue and let these criminals away with it and why is this allowed to happen. for example how many old people are caught out by these scams i know for a fact my mother has been caught a few times by this and has had to change numbers a few times because they kept taking her credit, i feel guilty now i didn't chase it up on her behalf. but seriously these companies are every bit as bad as the lads in the white vans that come and offer to fix your roof or powerhose your driveway. and you know what makes it worse when i queried how such a service would have gotten me to subscribe (unbeknownst obviously) the three rep asked me if i had ever text into a show like the Late Late show for a competition, turns out i had a few weeks ago, more fool me, so even our State broadcaster is complicit in this type of illegal scamming. I would also regard my mobile phone network as complicit, these services should be blocked by default and a person should need to request to have them enabled. anyway rant over, hopefully the two companies will resolve this or else it will be on to ComReg, failing that i won't be paying my phone bill and will also be cancelling my mobile broadband with Three

antix80

I worked in Vodafone and couldn't understand how Vodafone were allowing zamano (and others) to rip customers off.

One day I typed Zamano into the account holder search. Dozens of accounts and huge volumes of transactions. Perhaps 13 to 15c to Vodafone per message sent (all the spammy free messages plus the scammy reverse charge ones) and dozens of phones registered to zamano employees.

In other words, Vodafone were complicit in this theft.

I'll bet many of those companies set up shop with three.

Ten Pin

Comreg make money by charging a licence fee to PRS operators.

The networks make money by receiving their minimum SMS charge.

Everyone is making money except, of course, the consumer.

IMO Comreg aren't fulfilling their duty of consumer protection and the slow speed of dealing with complaints in the modern era of instantaneous communication is an absolute joke (10 days to respond at each step of the process, the whole thing should take less than a week).

Wonder if Distance Selling rules could be used to get refund under 14 day cooling off?

This scourge may escalate as the networks lose revenue from NGN calls.

Anyway the code of practice might give some more ideas to dispute the charges.

https://www.comreg.ie/premium-rate/code-of-practice/

There's a requirement to send an AGREE SMS before any subscription can be charged for. So ask both 3 and the PRS co to produce the evidence that this was sent. Shouldn't take long to prove that they contravened the code. This should be the first thing Comreg should request...that's if they are following their own code of practice. Wonder if Comreg audit this aspect of PRS compliance or is it like like the good ole days of self regulation.

3 are helping the PRS co and IMO GDPR has to have some relevance to this problem as 3 are providing personal data to a third party for a "service" that wasn't requested and therefore could not be construed as being necessary for 3 to provide normal service.

Ten Pin

The excuse from 3 that a Late Late Show competition is the source is BS. You can't be subscribed to additional services other than the specific one you entered without agreeing separately.

3 would be well aware of the phone numbers of those who entered competitions, it's all a bit too convenient for them to blame it on RTE.

Anyway, it's Phonovation that runs the Late Late competition, not Txtnation, further evidence that 3 are spoofing.