57977 Three Ireland- Dangerous to your bank account

GusGus

I know there are old threads on this one . I pay my bill by DD to three . On jan 5 I allegedly received 5 texts from this number and three have charged me €16. I never received or signed up for anything .

Three have advised I send STOP to the number and this may be wise but it also gives this company my number . They also suggest that I contact the company to get a refund again give this absolutely dodgy company my details . How can they refund me ? I pay three and am certainly nit giving them my details .

Three hide behind Com Reg . They act as agents fir these companies and are actively participating in the scam. How much do they get out of this ? Why don’t Three give you the option to block this when you start a contract ? Why can’t you do it online ?

Three have been appalling ! Unhelpful and using the same copy and paste replies .

I have had no option but to block my DD as I can’t trust three . Sad days and a very poor company .

Any suggestions on what I should do next ?

daheff

OmegaGene wrote: »

Pay your bill to three and sign up to gomo for €12.99 all calls texts and 80gb of data
These fees you have incurred are likely due to clicking on a link on a certain type of website, three are correct in their advice of sending stop to them, you say they will have your number but they already have it lol

how would signing up to GOMO stop this type of scam?

GOMO charge for these types of activity too.

L1011

OmegaGene wrote: »

Gomo is cheaper than three

That has zero impact on the fees charged by PRS operators

Bikerman2019

You can now contact your operator and be put on a premium bar list.


This stops receipt and sending of all premium texts.

the boss of me

This is why I'll never have another bill phone.. there are some great payg deals out there.

ohnonotgmail

the boss of me wrote: »

This is why I'll never have another bill phone.. there are some great payg deals out there.

having a payg phone wouldn't help. you would just end up losing all of your credit.

STB.

Its mobile apps. And its drive by cross scripting stuff that Comreg have been complicit in allowing continue because there is a complaint route.


Make a complaint to Comreg. Opt out of Premium SMS services which should be the default (but isnt). There is another thread on this them already.

silver2020

not the fault of three - comreg is the place to go and complain about the practices of the company running the scam.

fivesixtwo

All of the Telcos here that faciitate the sending of Premium or scam texts to phones have a supply agreement with these rip off merchants.

The neworks activley market their platforms to these guys on a profit sharing agreement, 50/50, 60/40.

Their wholesale divisions deal with this end of the market and are target and revenue driven,

silver2020

fivesixtwo wrote: »

All of the Telcos here that faciitate the sending of Premium or scam texts to phones have a supply agreement with these rip off merchants.

The neworks activley market their platforms to these guys on a profit sharing agreement, 50/50, 60/40.

Their wholesale divisions deal with this end of the market and are target and revenue driven,

Totally incorrect.

Its like blaming a bank because you took money from an atm machine and someone nicked your wallet
All premium rate numbers are regulated by Comreg. Once they have a license, the service providers cannot refuse to allow their service.

There is one place and one place only for complaints about 57977 and that's comreg who gave them authorisation
https://www.comreg.ie/premium-rate/about-premium-rate-services/what-are-premium-rate-services/

The only problem is comreg make it effin difficult to complain as you have to deal with these scum first
57977 is TXTNATION LTD tel- 01 903 8309 email help@pfi.me

They opeate dozens of scam premium texts including the "win voucher" scam texts. https://servicechecker.comreg.ie/Find/Index?q=57977

Comreg should be ashamed of allowing these scum a license

silver2020

How to deal with TxtNatation scam texts.

1 - Email help@pfi.me -
request that your number not to be subscribed to any of their services (they have dozens)
request a refund of all charges

2 - Take a screenshot of the messages and make a formal complaint to comreg regarding their mode of operation. The more complaints Comreg get, the more likely they will do something



Only if comreg get a deluge of complaints about this service will they start doing something.

Txtnation are a UK company with a turnover in excess of £11m

If you complain, they will give an immediate refund as they do not want complaints to regulatory authorities, so if people really want to stop this scam, complain, complain and complain again to comreg.

Johnny Sausage

just got stung with these today ,

complaint going to comreg as i type

silver2020

Johnny Sausage wrote: »

just got stung with these today ,

complaint going to comreg as i type

They don't really care.

more info.

Txt Nation Ltd provides the platform and they get the licence or permission from Comreg.

They in turn rent their platform to third party operators such as red27 who blatantly add people without permission and blatantly flout the regulation.

When you send an email to them, they will respond to you within a couple of hours claiming you clicked on a link and agreed to the terms but "as an act of goodwill" they will refund you.

I've seen the response to two others aside from the response they gave me and the responses are IDENTICAL except for your name - copy and paste the same reponse - "you clicked, we'll give you goodwill refund"

BULLSH1T

as for Comreg - they said if you don't get a refund within 10 days, they will investigate, but if you do get a refund, they don't give s sh1t.

So Txt Nation knowingly allow a scam like red27 operate on their platform and effectively deduct money from people without authorisation and conreg don't care.

Johnny Sausage

Yeah it was that red 27 crowd

Johnny Sausage

They've emailed me back saying that they will refund 7.50,

i said no, i didnt sign up

they said i signed up on my handset, an iphone (lie, i dont have one) on 12/02/2020 (another lie, my phone was off all day in a drawer in work locked) and offered 15e

they are pure scumbags

Ten Pin

they said i signed up on my handset, an iphone (lie, i dont have one) on 12/02/2020 (another lie, my phone was off all day in a drawer in work locked) and offered 15e

That seems to be their standard excuse...

https://m.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=112304349&postcount=40

Comreg rules state that they need an AGREE SMS from the phone number to validate a subscription charge. AFAIK, IP sign up is not part of the rules.

L1011

Comreg claim that IP only sign up is "informed consent". Which is patently nonsense

Ten Pin

There is no mention of IP sign up in the Comreg code of practice
(Comreg 14/45 https://www.comreg.ie/publication/code-of-practice-a-premium-rate-services.)

It specifically states that an AGREE SMS is required (from pages 22/23 of the code).

If Comreg don't enforce their own code of practice, why would the licensee's bother....

Unless there's an updated code of practice but the one above is the latest version on their website.

silver2020

Johnny Sausage wrote: »

They've emailed me back saying that they will refund 7.50,

i said no, i didnt sign up

they said i signed up on my handset, an iphone (lie, i dont have one) on 12/02/2020 (another lie, my phone was off all day in a drawer in work locked) and offered 15e

they are pure scumbags

That's their mode of operating.

Refund the few that notice, make money from the thousands that don't.

Comreg will not do anything as they can't be bothered.

steele3388

Just to let you know my experience. You can be signed up by anyone, there is a website you or anyone can go to and enter a phone number. Once you do this they send out a message stating that you can text back stop if you do not want to be signed up. I thought it was a scam number and ignored it.

There is no onus on the part of the company to verify that it is you who has signed up for this service. And Three do not seem to care about it.

I had to keep hassling the company red27mobile it was for me, and keep insisting that I did not sign up. I asked for the records for where and when I signed up. They send me some output from their database that had the ip address I signed up from, this was not near me and I stated this. The other information meant nothing without knowing what the codes meant and they would not share that with me.

I just had to keep hassling them and threatening to go to the comReg and they eventually refunded me.

silver2020

steele3388 wrote: »

And Three do not seem to care about it.

Its nothing to do with three - if comreg have given the licence Three must allow for the service to be provided.

There are only 3 parties that are to blame here

Red27
Txt Nation
Comreg

lobbylad

Just to chip in with my experience, bought 2 x GOMO SIMs for my kids for a new phone for Christmas.

On Jan bill, there was an extra €30 on one of the SIMs for premium services from Quizzam and Mindquiz. Checked the SMS on the phone and all there were was a message stating that €10 and €20 would be taken, with no other messages.

Asked my daughter about it and she didn't remember agreeing to anything.

When I emailed the support emails for above, they both replied (with the same email!) saying that the user had clicked on an online advert on the phone to activate the charges.

So I asked them to provide evidence of the "AGREE" SMS that they should have. They could not, but stated that the user must have replied.

But on the next line they offered a full refund of all charges!

I have made a complaint to Comreg about this. I was lucky to spot the charges but many others might not, they should not be allowed operate in Ireland, they are nothing but a scam.

silver2020

lobbylad wrote: »

Just to chip in with my experience, bought 2 x GOMO SIMs for my kids for a new phone for Christmas.

you can contact gomo (or any operator) and put a block on all premium services.

If kids have phones, that's the best solution and avoids nasty shocks as some of these scams are €20 a week!

lobbylad

silver2020 wrote: »

you can contact gomo (or any operator) and put a block on all premium services.

If kids have phones, that's the best solution and avoids nasty shocks as some of these scams are €20 a week!

Already done, couldn't do it through the "My GOMO" site, as the options were greyed out, but did it via Live Chat on the site.

STB.

silver2020 wrote: »

Its nothing to do with three - if comreg have given the licence Three must allow for the service to be provided.

There are only 3 parties that are to blame here

Red27
Txt Nation
Comreg

Of course its also a "Three" problem. Do you not think they are a beneficiary in all of this ?

STB.

Johnny Sausage wrote: »

They've emailed me back saying that they will refund 7.50,

i said no, i didnt sign up

they said i signed up on my handset, an iphone (lie, i dont have one) on 12/02/2020 (another lie, my phone was off all day in a drawer in work locked) and offered 15e

they are pure scumbags

This is also widespread in the UK. So much so that some guy started up a thread on the moneysavingexpert forum (happy reading) and has had thousands refunded for individuals by providing a template on how to deal with them. Effectively, its the threat of court, and if they persist, they pay the court costs and settle in full because they don't want it highlighted.

I'll see can I find it and someone might be able to tell you the relevance in Ireland.

I gather its via the UK's equivalent of our Small Claims Court. The first step is sending a "letter before action", warning of your intention to enforce your claim through the county court, if necessary. If they don't pay up at that stage, you pay the fee to the Small Claims Court to start a claim, the cost of which can be recouped with to your claim. They will have to prove how they obtained your consent if they go to court. They won't show and will settle well before that.

Darc19

STB. wrote: »

Of course its also a "Three" problem. Do you not think they are a beneficiary in all of this ?

They are obligated to accept and apply the charges. They have no choice. Same for Eir, gomo & Vodafone.

Only people who can change it is Comreg.

seagull

STB. wrote: »

This is also widespread in the UK. So much so that some guy started up a thread on the moneysavingexpert forum (happy reading) and has had thousands refunded for individuals by providing a template on how to deal with them. Effectively, its the threat of court, and if they persist, they pay the court costs and settle in full because they don't want it highlighted.

I'll see can I find it and someone might be able to tell you the relevance in Ireland.

I gather its via the UK's equivalent of our Small Claims Court. The first step is sending a "letter before action", warning of your intention to enforce your claim through the county court, if necessary. If they don't pay up at that stage, you pay the fee to the Small Claims Court to start a claim, the cost of which can be recouped with to your claim. They will have to prove how they obtained your consent if they go to court. They won't show and will settle well before that.

Unfortunately, you can't include the small claims court fees in your claim here, so if you do go that route, you're losing €25 from your refund.

JohnC.

lobbylad wrote: »

Just to chip in with my experience, bought 2 x GOMO SIMs for my kids for a new phone for Christmas.

On Jan bill, there was an extra €30 on one of the SIMs for premium services from Quizzam and Mindquiz. Checked the SMS on the phone and all there were was a message stating that €10 and €20 would be taken, with no other messages.

Asked my daughter about it and she didn't remember agreeing to anything.

When I emailed the support emails for above, they both replied (with the same email!) saying that the user had clicked on an online advert on the phone to activate the charges.

So I asked them to provide evidence of the "AGREE" SMS that they should have. They could not, but stated that the user must have replied.

But on the next line they offered a full refund of all charges!

I have made a complaint to Comreg about this. I was lucky to spot the charges but many others might not, they should not be allowed operate in Ireland, they are nothing but a scam.

When you say kids, I'm assuming you mean under 18?

What is the law on underage people being signed up to these? Is it legal?

The ones your kids were signed up to seem to be 18+ services, so mentioning that would maybe have solved that too.

unkel

My daughter clicked on one of these links. Obviously I only spotted it when I got a massive bill from GoMo

Emailed that sewer company txtnation, insisting I get every last cent back. Threatening with comreg and the small claims court. About 5 emails later (with increasing "offers" of stopping the service, paying me back €5, paying me back €10, etc.), I eventually get an email stating I will get a full refund, and to give them my IBAN. A couple of days later the full refund was in my bank account

If everybody does this, they will have zero revenue and they will stop their "service". Unfortunately, many people just pay up. Or don't even notice the charges :rolleyes:

seagull

unkel wrote: »

Emailed that sewer company txtnation,

I take offense to your description of this company. Sewers serve a useful purpose, and remove unpleasant stuff from our lives. These text companies serve no useful purpose, and are more toxic than anything you will find in a sewer.

unkel

Haha, agreed. Couldn't think of a more appropriate, yet family friendly, term to describe this company at the time.

lobbylad

JohnC. wrote: »

When you say kids, I'm assuming you mean under 18?

What is the law on underage people being signed up to these? Is it legal?

The ones your kids were signed up to seem to be 18+ services, so mentioning that would maybe have solved that too.

Yes, they are under 18, and I did mention that.

They offered the full refund without any pushback whatsoever, although I'll wait till the cash is back in my account!

Cyrusmekon

Just got scammed on the 57977 number.

Utter nonsense. 8 charges totalling 16.26 euro on my account.

Things I did that may help others
1: Call 3, deactivate all premium services on my account

2: Emailed help@pfi.me outlining the situation...The response "Unfortunately we are the billing platform provider and not the content provider that has charged you, while I understand your frustration unfortunately I cannot process a refund on my end. The reason that you have been billed is that you have clicked to access the mobile games portal, by doing this will receive 28 days access to the portal for €20.00 sent to you via 8 €2.50 messages."

3: Lodged a complaint with comreg.ie

4: Heavily worded email for a refund to "support@red27mobile.com"

How they were able to sign me up without verification baffles me.

On advice of Com Reg another email went to help@pfi.me. Dont take no for an answer.

So frustrating.

unkel

No need to go to comreg, that company will refund you in full when you push them.

Grab All Association

Another avenue is to complain to these websites that carry these adverts. TippFM is one of them. YouTube is notorious for this.

silver2020

unkel wrote: »

No need to go to comreg, that company will refund you in full when you push them.

comreg won't want to know.

Basically they will tell you to all but eff off and not annoy them and these scammer know that.

Comreg will ONLY get involved if you give them a 7 day notice of wanting a refund and they do not respond to that.

So these companies can scam left right and centre by simply refunding the very few who notice and request a refund.

No accountability whatsoever from comreg. this is complete opposite to the UK where they have a specific regulator for phone-paid services that have teeth and have no problem taking these scammers to book.

CharlieR

silver2020 wrote: »

How to deal with TxtNatation scam texts.

1 - Email help@pfi.me -
request that your number not to be subscribed to any of their services (they have dozens)
request a refund of all charges

2 - Take a screenshot of the messages and make a formal complaint to comreg regarding their mode of operation. The more complaints Comreg get, the more likely they will do something



Only if comreg get a deluge of complaints about this service will they start doing something.

Txtnation are a UK company with a turnover in excess of £11m

If you complain, they will give an immediate refund as they do not want complaints to regulatory authorities, so if people really want to stop this scam, complain, complain and complain again to comreg.

Three can now block premium rate texts if you want.

Make sure you send STOP within the 1st 24 hours as there t&cs state as you won’t be charged.

I hit the link on my fitness pal by mistake and the just billed me. I argued and got my 20 euro back by sending them the picture that I could click on after 3 blocked premium charges.

CharlieR

silver2020 wrote: »

How to deal with TxtNatation scam texts.

1 - Email help@pfi.me -
request that your number not to be subscribed to any of their services (they have dozens)
request a refund of all charges

2 - Take a screenshot of the messages and make a formal complaint to comreg regarding their mode of operation. The more complaints Comreg get, the more likely they will do something



Only if comreg get a deluge of complaints about this service will they start doing something.

Txtnation are a UK company with a turnover in excess of £11m

If you complain, they will give an immediate refund as they do not want complaints to regulatory authorities, so if people really want to stop this scam, complain, complain and complain again to comreg.

Three can now block premium rate texts if you want.

Make sure you send STOP within the 1st 24 hours as there t&cs state as you won’t be charged.

I hit the link on my fitness pal by mistake and the just billed me. I argued and got my 20 euro back by sending them the picture that I could click on after 3 blocked premium charges.

CharlieR

silver2020 wrote: »

How to deal with TxtNatation scam texts.

1 - Email help@pfi.me -
request that your number not to be subscribed to any of their services (they have dozens)
request a refund of all charges

2 - Take a screenshot of the messages and make a formal complaint to comreg regarding their mode of operation. The more complaints Comreg get, the more likely they will do something



Only if comreg get a deluge of complaints about this service will they start doing something.

Txtnation are a UK company with a turnover in excess of £11m

If you complain, they will give an immediate refund as they do not want complaints to regulatory authorities, so if people really want to stop this scam, complain, complain and complain again to comreg.

Three can now block premium rate texts if you want.

Make sure you send STOP within the 1st 24 hours as there t&cs state as you won’t be charged.

I hit the link on my fitness pal by mistake and the just billed me. I argued and got my 20 euro back by sending them the picture that I could click on after 3 blocked premium charges.

beauf

We have basic dumb nokia as an emergency phone or the kids. I noticed all the credit was gone. They have a premium game on the firmware that you can't remove. One of the kids was playing the game not realizing it was being billed. Nice.

BnB

unkel wrote: »

My daughter clicked on one of these links. Obviously I only spotted it when I got a massive bill from GoMo

Emailed that sewer company txtnation, insisting I get every last cent back. Threatening with comreg and the small claims court. About 5 emails later (with increasing "offers" of stopping the service, paying me back €5, paying me back €10, etc.), I eventually get an email stating I will get a full refund, and to give them my IBAN. A couple of days later the full refund was in my bank account

If everybody does this, they will have zero revenue and they will stop their "service". Unfortunately, many people just pay up. Or don't even notice the charges :rolleyes:

Did TxtNation try and fob you off to another company first and who eventually agreed to and paid your refund ?

tele2020

Just got 7 texts yesterday, what a pain in the ass, I deleted them all not knowing I was actually being charged, then checked andrealised I was done. Contacted three and credit where it's due, the gut was very helpful and put a premium block on account etc and gave me teh details of who to contact, that red27 crowd. Have asked for full refund andsee where it goes, but I do see people mentioning giving their iban numbers, is that safe? The three guy said paypal can be used too.

Walnut Salad

I got these on my GoMo bill today. I don't know how.

I will try emailing TextNation as indicated above. What is the exact email address?

Fabio

Walnut Salad wrote: »

I got these on my GoMo bill today. I don't know how.

I will try emailing TextNation as indicated above. What is the exact email address?

support@red27mobile.com

Johnny_Fontane

These maggots scammed my Mum, who is in her 70's.

strongly worded email to them just gone out.

Johnny_Fontane

they've offered me a €7.50 (as in last week) reduction. They've billed me for €52.50

AndrewJRenko

silver2020 wrote: »

not the fault of three - comreg is the place to go and complain about the practices of the company running the scam.

silver2020 wrote: »

Totally incorrect.

Its like blaming a bank because you took money from an atm machine and someone nicked your wallet
All premium rate numbers are regulated by Comreg. Once they have a license, the service providers cannot refuse to allow their service.

There is one place and one place only for complaints about 57977 and that's comreg who gave them authorisation
https://www.comreg.ie/premium-rate/about-premium-rate-services/what-are-premium-rate-services/

The only problem is comreg make it effin difficult to complain as you have to deal with these scum first
57977 is TXTNATION LTD tel- 01 903 8309 email help@pfi.me

They opeate dozens of scam premium texts including the "win voucher" scam texts. https://servicechecker.comreg.ie/Find/Index?q=57977

Comreg should be ashamed of allowing these scum a license

silver2020 wrote: »

Its nothing to do with three - if comreg have given the licence Three must allow for the service to be provided.

There are only 3 parties that are to blame here

Red27
Txt Nation
Comreg

All those parties are indeed to blame, as is Three and the other networks that participate in the scam. It is the networks who dip into the customer's bank account, take the money, and hand over portion to the scammers.

The networks could easy, for example, default to No premium rate texts and require consumers to request to switch this on - an easy measure that would protect many of their customers.

Johnny_Fontane

negotiated to €40. No sign of it in my paypal yet.

seagull

Don't allow them to negotiate. Just insist on a full refund.

Gru

way back when, 2012-ish i was a customer of three, my wife and I got these texts at various times, she took it up with the company Zamano who were the ones behind the texts at that time and they passed the buck to Three, who passed it back to Zamano, and so on...

until eventually after going up the chain at Three she eventually got onto someone there who refunded every cent. (Zamano told us they'd only refund the portion they took not the portion Three got).

she also demanded Three let us out of our contract for free as we never had scam text's on other networks, and suddenly she was told that Three can bar their number from texting us, and we never got one again, we did move network anyway once the contract ended and haven't gotten one since on any other network (but i believe others on other networks have), but with Three its a very common occurrence to get these in my opinion.

She also got everything in e-mail and copied comreg on the whole thing, but by the time comreg got back to her it had been refunded and they declared the issue "solved".