Overcharging for Crazy Frog leaves users hopping mad

Repli

From todays indo (lol who thinks up their titles) Jamster strike again

FEES charged by the company responsible for the Crazy Frog ringtone are just as mad and annoying as the tone itself, an investigation by the Office of the Director of Consumer Affairs (ODCA) has found.

German-based Jamster, which provides ringtones, animated screensavers and other technology for mobile phones, has agreed to reimburse more than 100 customers in Ireland after the ODCA found that it had been overcharging customers, often children, when they signed up for ringtone and other services through its website www.jamster.ie.

Yet ODCA director Carmel Foley said the actual number of customers who have been overcharged is likely to be much higher, as it's likely many people don't even realise they have been overcharged.

"We imagine that what we've heard is just the tip of the iceberg," she said of 26 complaints of overcharging logged to her office and 100 filed with the telecommunications regulator Regtel. The ODCA, posing as an online customer, was charged twice as much as it should have been when it signed up for four weeks' worth of ringtones and screensavers through Jamster's Polyphonic Ringtone club on the internet.

But instead of being billed €16 for the month in exchange for receiving six ringtones and six logos for €4 a week, the office was actually billed for €32. When the office queried the bill, it was told by the company that the ODCA was responsible for the over-billing itself after inadvertently signing up for the service twice.

It was only after the ODCA showed Jamster a paper trail revealing its meticulous recording of the sign-up process as well as text messages it received that Jamster conceded the error was its own and agreed to reimburse the money.

Consumers who believe they have been overcharged should contact Jamster's Customer Service line at 1890 943300 or contact Regtel at 1850 741 741.

Officials from Jamster could not be reached for comment.

Allison Bray

Raphael

You mean they're rip off artists? Wow, who would have thought it.

po0k

Anyone who buys ringtones deserves to get raped. Darwin had the right idea.

MooShop

its good enough for them if they buy that crazy frog piece of sh1t, its so annoying

Eve e

It's a tax on stupidity.

thelordofcheese

"a fool and their money..." and all that.

To be honest i think overcharging for that crazy frog ringtone should be compulsory, it'd stop every second 13 year old having it on their phone, and playing it loudly to their friends on the bus, pretending like it's the best thing since lesbians.

BizzyC

They're all idiots who ran out and bought the thing, they deserve to be overcharged.

That ringtone is a severe annoiance to everyone with a brain, so they deserve what they get.

Mimikyu

This post has been deleted.

YeatsCounty

With any luck, Jamster will fold up now that they can't overcharge anymore. I hate that company, I hate the Crazy Frog, Nessie the Dragon, those singing birds and the flatulent monkeys.

Jamster must be destroyed, as well as anyone who got the Crazy Frog tone willingly. :mad:

Is the Crazy Frog/Axel F "chune" still Number One in the UK charts?

koneko

Yeah, I'm going to go with Stupid Tax on this one. It's only a matter of time before it's officially implemented everywhere, they're just ahead of the ball. I think they should include a free smack in the face for anyone that buys this ringtone too. I'd take that job.

weemcd

serves them right

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

Repli wrote:

From todays indo (lol who thinks up their titles)

the titles on their articles confirm the tabloid nature of the paper. biggest load of thrash in Ireland.

StupidLikeAFox

I am so much better than people who buy ringtones, as they are obviously stupid.

I am clearly great.

AdMMM

Aye I've noticed that their headlines are increasingly getting more tabloid like. Although I disagree with you about it being the biggest load of thrash and the Indo still manages to deliver its news in an unbiased manner...

Anyway, thats a matter for the News/Media forum.

Just a question, with InfraRed being available on the majority of all phones these days, WHY THE F00K DID EVERYONE BUY THE TONE? , they deserved to be overcharged...

de5p0i1er

Eve e wrote:

It's a tax on stupidity.

But the rest of us have to endure all those adds on tv and here it when there phones ring near us.

astec123

My problem lies in all these people paying for these tones when 10 minutes on googles wap section revealed to me 3 sources of the song for the cost of GPRS. Better still a few moments online at home on the laptop on broad band and for nothing again you can have the tone, infrared is standard on laptops and many people have PDAs or otherwise that they can use, and others have 6600s etc with mem cards to transfer to.

Its such as waste of money.

Capt'n Midnight

Jamster are owned by Verisign - pop both into google and..

http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/04/05/HNjamster_1.html

In the case of Jamster, the service is advertised heavily on TV channels such as Nickelodeon that are aimed at children, according to the suit. The company depended on young mobile users getting drawn into the service and on their parents paying the charges, which appear on the monthly cell phone bill, it alleges.

more importantly isn't Erik Wernquist suing them over the name ?

BTW: http://anticrazyfrog.atspace.com/
20/05/2005 Jamster is spending nearly £7 million on the Crazy Frog commercials this month alone


Beh-ding ding ding ding dididing ding bing bing pscht,
Dorhrm bom bom bedom bem bom bedom bom bum ba ba bom bom,
Bouuuuum bom bom bedahm, Bom be barbedarm bedabedabedabeda
Bbrrrrrimm bbrrrrramm bbbrrrrrrrrraammmmm ddddddraammm,
Bah bah baah baah ba wheeeeeee-eeeee-eeeee!

Cake Fiend

I'll agree with the general consensus of the thread that this is a fine example of modern Darwinism.

Yay Stupid tax!

Catsmokinpot

i think we should overthrow the government and set up our own communist state where everything is pretty much the same, accept we go around killing every one who works in a ringtone company and put out a reward of 2,000,000 on Daniel Malmedahl(inventor of crazy frog) and try to get him extradited to ireland where ofcourse the death penalty has been reinstated just for him, and declare war on any country who harbours this terrorist

besty

any charge for that musical manifestation of someone scraping their nails on a blackboard is too much in my opinion

grimloch

Isn't it fantastic when people decide to play it in the cinema?

Tiffany

God I hate skangers who play all their ringtones on the bus. Last time they kept playing this sound clip of a guy shagging a goat at full volume on a packed bus, and sending it to each other so eventually they were all playing it.

Tar.Aldarion

no memories that hurt ahhh

Cabaal

Hang on there!
Your only supposed to subscribe to most of these ringtone things if your 16 or over
How the feck is it Jamsters fault if some muppet 12 year old signs up without reading the small print and then its to stupid to be able to txt back STOP to stop the service.

"Will somebody please think of the children"

Cabaal

Catsmokinpot wrote:

....put out a reward of 2,000,000 on Daniel Malmedahl(inventor of crazy frog) and try to get him extradited to ireland where ofcourse the death penalty........

Yeah but he did'ent record it for use as a ringtone he simple made a sound affects CD because his friends told him he was good at it (sound affects that is)
What we really need to do is go back in time and kill the founder of Jamster before the company is started

I'm sure the whole crazy frog thing is *somewhat* funny for those of us that hasn't been on the net for years and did'ent hear it back in the 90's a million times over :rolleyes:
The Old insanity test http://web.archive.org/web/20011221211300/http://www.iqx.ionichost.com/other/instest.html

dbs_sailor

Crazy Frog blows. I hope they get away with ripping off more kids, that'll learn those retards.

grimloch

It's not jamsters fault if people are too stupid to read properly I suppose. Also there's a game coming out I'm told.

Capt'n Midnight

grimloch wrote:

It's not jamsters fault if people are too stupid to read properly I suppose. Also there's a game coming out I'm told.

Do a google , and you will find that most of the complaints are not about a single one off payment for a ringtone. They are about subscribing people up to a service that wasn't advertised and double charging them, and in at least case someone sent the ring tone to a friend as a joke and the friend was then subscribed. Also as per my previous post, they target kids knowing that parents will have to pay up later on. And there is no love lost on the parent company Verisign either. /RANT

grimloch

I though the subscription business was all contained in the fabled ''fine print''.

The General

stop complaining about jamster if there weren't as many bloody stupid/brainless people around then there would be on jamster

Tar.Aldarion

overcharge them more please....

Kare Bear

We can only hope some great catastrophe wipes the bastards out.:mad:

Easily_Irritated

Any fecking eejit who signs up for those things deserve to be over charged, by jingos!

Words can not express my extreme hatred for the people who cam up with that crazy ****in frog bas*ard!

Capt'n Midnight

Cabaal wrote:

Hang on there!
Your only supposed to subscribe to most of these ringtone things if your 16 or over
How the feck is it Jamsters fault if some muppet 12 year old signs up without reading the small print and then its to stupid to be able to txt back STOP to stop the service.

"Will somebody please think of the children"

The simple answer to this is to an Opt In scheme on all prepaid phones, and a tick box on all contracts that says - this phone will be used by an over 16.

It must be Opt In because it's not a basic requirement.

Also change the law so that if it can be show that a company is directing advertising at under 16's then it must refund any charges to under 16's. eg: if an under 16 signs up to the weather or adult dating service then their fault, but if they sign up to a cute cartoon character that all adults despise then it's entrapment and illegal.

egan007

Anyone who buys this F*cking ringtone should be charger 1million euro