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Zamano

cormie

So on I think it was, March 7th, I got a text out of nowhere about some Podge and Rodge subscription and it told me text STOP to unsubscribe (unsubscribe to what I thought?). Apparantly I signed up to some service and it was done from my phone, the only way possible I think it could have been that my browser was activated while in my pocket and it did it from the homepage somehow, an unfortunate coincidence of random key presses in my pocket perhaps?

Anyway, it turned out I was charged 2.50 the next day after I got another text because I didn't text stop. I was afraid to text stop incase that itself would sign me up to something, these services are generally very sneaky. I rang o2 and they unsubscribed me but I wanted to find out where this company got my details from anyway and to get my money back. They said it'd be investigated and all that and I'd be sent a call log. I never got the log which was sent out on March 9th and that was the last I heard. I rang back today and they said it was investigated and they said the refund was declined as it happened from my phone and I didn't text stop! This was seen as them getting my permission:eek:

The lady the first day said it was done through a company called eirborne, I forgot the name of them today when I rang back but I asked who it was done through and the lady on the phone said she didn't have access to that info, I said the last lady in the same department was able to tell me, so why couldn't she. Then I remembered it was eirborne. I googled and saw eirborne was bought by Zamano!

It's only 2.50 yeah, but it's a matter of principal, I feel I've been robbed of 2.50 and I don't like the idea of it.

Any suggestions as to how I can go about getting what I believe is my money back?

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foggy_lad

sant2910 wrote: »

They have taken € 20 from my mobile. I complaint to Regtel and they asked me to contact service provider. Up on contacting the Blinck mobile customer care I received a reply form them today, it says;

Dear Customer,
Thank you for your email.
In your email, you have stated that you have not requested our service. The only way to initiate a subscription is to carry out the instructions provided to you in our advertising. Upon receipt of your confirmation message, the subscription was activated.
We have assisted you in providing the date and times your phone was used to order our service.
Given the above, we can confirm that your phone was used to order our service without your knowledge and without your prior consent.
We would like to suggest that you try and locate the third party that ordered our service, and may we suggest that you take appropriate measures to prevent this from happening again.
Please note that you are responsible for all use of your phone, even if it was not authorized by you.

Please feel free to contact us if you have any additional questions.
Yours sincerely,
John.T
Blinck Customer Care Team

What should I do now??

did they give you dates and times that they say you used their services? if so then you need to contact your mobile provider and get them to confirm that messages were sent from your phone at these times/dates and if not get back onto RegTel who will take action for you.

Raiser

I like Cormies idea.

I wonder could you just walk up to them and ask them if they'd like to avail of your free service......

Then just repeatedly kick them in the face until they scream stop.

cormie

I wonder if you went into the Zamano building dressed as a courier with an empty padded envelope and got whoever was at the desk to sign for it, but what they are actually signing is the same T+C that they say everyone signs up for and just change the relevant lines, could you just go in and take stuff at will until they write STOP to you at which time you stop, but you get to keep all the paper clips, photo copy paper, chairs, plants and whatever else was there in the lobby? :pac:

sant2910

They have taken € 20 from my mobile. I complaint to Regtel and they asked me to contact service provider. Up on contacting the Blinck mobile customer care I received a reply form them today, it says;

Dear Customer,
Thank you for your email.
In your email, you have stated that you have not requested our service. The only way to initiate a subscription is to carry out the instructions provided to you in our advertising. Upon receipt of your confirmation message, the subscription was activated.
We have assisted you in providing the date and times your phone was used to order our service.
Given the above, we can confirm that your phone was used to order our service without your knowledge and without your prior consent.
We would like to suggest that you try and locate the third party that ordered our service, and may we suggest that you take appropriate measures to prevent this from happening again.
Please note that you are responsible for all use of your phone, even if it was not authorized by you.

Please feel free to contact us if you have any additional questions.
Yours sincerely,
John.T
Blinck Customer Care Team

What should I do now??

jor el

ludwit wrote: »

While my phone keypad was unlocked I unknowingly accessed Planet 3 on my 3 Mobile phone.

I presume you've unsubscribed now?

Cabaal

ludwit wrote: »

While my phone keypad was unlocked I unknowingly accessed Planet 3 on my 3 Mobile phone.

At the top of Planet 3 is an advert for FUNMOBILE. Again while my phone was unlocked this was selected and went through to the FUNMOBILE website. On the website there is only one link which is to subscribe. Shortly after this was accidentally pressed I received a text message from FUNMOBILE saying I had subscribed to their services at 4.50E a week and 1.50E a text message.

That'll teach you to leave your mobile unlocked, now set the lock time to 1min and you won't have this problem in future.

Its not FUNMOBILE's fault

ludwit

While my phone keypad was unlocked I unknowingly accessed Planet 3 on my 3 Mobile phone.

At the top of Planet 3 is an advert for FUNMOBILE. Again while my phone was unlocked this was selected and went through to the FUNMOBILE website. On the website there is only one link which is to subscribe. Shortly after this was accidentally pressed I received a text message from FUNMOBILE saying I had subscribed to their services at 4.50E a week and 1.50E a text message.

MullingarMan

I was treated unfairly. I have phoned Zamano's Customer service. I was treated in an adverserial manner. I am still waiting for the cheque in the post.

I see Zamano shares on the ISEQ went up on Friday August 14th 2009 by 11.4%. That was following the trading of 4 (four) shares on the day. That was a trading of shares worth less than €0.80 (80 cent)! ! !

The market capitalisation of Zamano is €14.6M
- trading at €0.180
- however it gains €2M (market capital. = €16.6M) in 'paper value' if someone sells two shares and another someone buys two shares
- giving an overall trade of 4 (four) shares on the day
- at €0.205

So are Zamano shares a good buy?

blueirishangel

Have you phoned Zamanos customer service?

http://zamano.com/contact.html

They should be able to help you and will refund you if money has been taking unfairly.

My brother has dealt with them before and got a cheque in the post.

MullingarMan

In my previous post I noted that Zamano have a SMS short code of 57151 registered with Regtel. The phone and contact address are listed as (01) 5260014 and Info.IR@blinckmobile.com.

Zamano also have another SMS code listed with Regtel - that is 57030 - however Regtel have a different phone number and email address for this code - 0818 300048 and cs@zamano.com .
Zimano also has another SMS code = 57252 . . . and another, 57175

MullingarMan

blueirishangel wrote: »

Celldorado have nothing to do with Zamano.

Thankyou Blueirishangel,
I was sent a number of texts from SMS Short Code 57151.
The text ended by 'ie.celldorado.com'. Regtel (as per their website) report that this is the code of Service Provider 'Zamano'.
They (Regtel) also note the phone number for Zamano as (01) 5260014.
On the Celldorado contact page the phone number for Ireland is listed as 01 526 0014

It is a remarkable coincidence that two entities that have the same phone number have nothing to do with one another!

blueirishangel

Celldorado have nothing to do with Zamano.

Bob Z

MullingarMan wrote: »

Can I convert my anger into action?

MullingarMan

Just want to log myself as someone who has been fleeced by the dishonest practices of Zamano and it's other names.
Thievery and deceipt is an appropriate description.
Can I convert my anger into action?

foggy_lad

on a similar note what is that new "play tv" thing on tv3 every night all about?

is it that they cant sell advertising for after midnight so they host a phone-in scam aimed at some of the most vulnerable of society? €1.50 per call and you are not guaranteed to get through as there is only one open line?

Raiser

El Camino wrote: »

A new bill has been published in the last week or so which is going to give greater powers to ComReg and RegTel to supervise and regulate this area... About time!! Hopefully this increased regulation will result in a clamp down on these awful practices.

http://www.oireachtas.ie/documents/bills28/bills/2009/5109/b5109d.pdf

My Sister got stung by these scumbags yesterday - I'd love if they were someday forced to pay back all the proceeds of their 'crime' retrospectively - utter w@nkers; they should be locked up :mad:

- In my opinion the scum out there beating and mugging folk on the street have more decency and honesty......

And why does RTE et al continue to go along with it? Its their programmes and crappy quizes that seem to kick most of these off. Although as they do charge €160 per household via the TV license to screen utter drivel day after weary day they are not too far from the daylight robbery bracket themselves......

El Camino

A new bill has been published in the last week or so which is going to give greater powers to ComReg and RegTel to supervise and regulate this area... About time!! Hopefully this increased regulation will result in a clamp down on these awful practices.

http://www.oireachtas.ie/documents/bills28/bills/2009/5109/b5109d.pdf

consultech

In ironic fashion my mother came in to me today in a panic as she has topped up twice in 3 days and had her credit pillaged to almost zero both times. She's been receiving these random texts about "games" for the last week (7 in total - she doesn't have a clue about "stop" - nor should she have to to be honest). She never signed up to anything.

I told her to get on to Vodafone and regtel and find out whats going on. Apparently a company called "Pengo.com" is taking credit, following on from a competition that was entered on the late late show almost a year ago. They are apparently owned by "Emexus"?

"mBlox" is apparently the company that owns all of the 5 digit premium numbers that have been mandating my mother's account. Regtel have told my mother that they will track the company at fault and contact her within 7 days. It sounds like she's gonna have an awful pain in the arse with Vodafone and Regtel getting her money back, to the tune of €17.50 approx.

Raiser

Please excuse the secondary post - but this deserves its own space:

http://www.the-scream.co.uk/forums/t25727.html?&highlight=zamano

And this:

http://www.tribune.ie/news/home-news/article/2008/dec/14/digital-hub-firm-given-grant-is-hit-with-200k-fine/

Tribune wrote:

A COMPANY given grant aid of €311,000 by Enterprise Ireland has been fined more than GBP£200,000 in the UK in relation to so-called "premium text services".

Zamano Limited, which is based in the Digital Hub in Dublin, has had 13 adjudications made against it by the British regulator PhonepayPlus.

However, the company, in which Enterprise Ireland is still a significant shareholder, said that while it had paid the fines – all of the money had since been recouped.

It said all of the adjudications involved third-party providers and that Zamano had not been the subject of a complaint since this summer.

So-called premium text services have proved controversial and involve mobile phone users registering for ringtones, quizzes, competitions, games and other services.

Many mobile phone owners believe that it is a once-off service only to discover later that it actually operates on a subscription basis.

Consumers are frequently billed up to €10 a month even if they are not actively using the service and then have to personally cancel the service.

Zamano said they had instituted a review of operations this year and were now actively turning away business who would not sign up to their code. They said they had not been the subject of a complaint since this summer as a result.

A statement said: "The premium rate services industry in which Zamano operates in the UK is regulated by PhonepayPlus and Zamano is obliged to follow its Code of Practice.

"Over 100 million text messages are sent from Zamano's technology platform annually, either directly from Zamano to the end user or indirectly by a number of third party service providers operating on Zamano's platform. Despite such high volumes just 13 adjudications have been made by PhonepayPlus relating to breaches of its code of practice".

Raiser

I did a small bit of digging and 20 seconds later discovered that the evil spawn that became todays Zamano was nourished from the payslips of you and me both via Enterprise Ireland and and then sheltered similarly in our stunning Digital Hub.......

- I'm sickened; In my opinion there's a better level of decency and integrity in Mountjoy & would like to see Zamano's crooks spend some time there.

My Missus was robbed blind after voting on some RTE TV show competition etc. and I am disgusted that this daylight robbery is allowed to continue to this day.

I reserve the right to hold a personal opinion on business practices of this nature and to express said personal opinion

http://www.thedigitalhub.com/enterprise_research/enterprise_case_study1.php

DigitalHub/Enterprise Ireland Site wrote:

Zamano, a leading provider of digital entertainment to mobile devices, was founded in Dublin in 2000, and has been located in The Digital Hub since January 2004. Initially locating in the Digital Depot building, a business incubator run by the Digital Hub Development Agency, and Enterprise Ireland, Zamano are one of the first significant digital media companies to graduate from The Digital Hub’s incubation space and enter the “high growth scaling division”.* From humble beginnings in 2001 Zamano grew and by the time they moved to The Digital Hub’s incubator space in January 2004 they had 16 employees. Zamano benefited from enterprise support from both Enterprise Ireland and The Digital Hub. According to John O’ Shea, MD of Zamano, “The worst thing you can do is take out a long term lease on an office and then in a year you’ve outgrown it and have to get a new lease and infrastructure”.

With the flexibility to scale with greater ease Zamano’s profitability continued to increase in 2005 and their total number of employees was by now 23. The company was placed second in the Deloitte Fast 50 Rising Star category, a ranking of the 50 fastest growing technology companies in Ireland. In 2006 Zamano moved out of the Digital Depot’s incubation space to a new office in The Digital Hub at 4 St. Catherine’s Lane West. This move, facilitated by The Digital Hub, allowed Zamano to “focus on running the business”, while The Digital Hub put together “the right infrastructure: putting desks, phones and net access in place” according to O’Shea. Their Digital Hub location has also provided Zamano with near at hand customers from the Digital Hub’s enterprise cluster of like minded companies – they have 5 customers in the vicinity of the campus – and can remain close to other potential customers and suppliers of their products and services

In 2006 Zamano expanded into the Australian market and significantly they floated on the alternative investment market (AIM) in London on the 31st of October. Zamano’s admission to AIM raised the profile of the company, and it was followed by their listing on the Irish Enterprise Exchange (IEX) on 26th of February 2007. Importantly Zamano’s IPO has aided further strategic acquisitions, the most recent being Red Circle Technologies Limited, their fifth acquisition and second in 2007 alone. 2007 also saw Zamano rank number 2 in the Deloitte Technology Fast 50.

Zamano continues to expand into new territories and increase investment in new technology. They are currently focusing on the scaling of their SMS business, the ongoing development of new WAP services and the growing demand for 3G mobile video services. Zamano can avail of doorstep access to leading edge research that The Digital Hub offers: They are currently taking part in a mobile TV project which is facilitated in The Digital Hub by the Digital Media Forum, with the express intention of bringing various stakeholders together to look at the wider possibilities and issues of Mobile TV and how it can appeal to a wide audience. Zamano now employ a staff of 37 in The Digital Hub. Zamano is now a leading provider of mobile services to UK, Australian and Irish mobile operators, such as Orange, Telstra, O2 and 3 Mobile among others. Beside these business partners, some of Zamano’s other customers include RTE.ie, Vivas Health, and Buy and Sell. This fast growing Irish Digital Media company is just one example of the enterprise focus of The Digital Hub. Zamano has benefited from not only the state of the art office and ICT infrastructure, but also from the business opportunities The Digital Hub brings.

Zamano, 4 St. Catherine's Lane West, The Digital Hub, Dublin 8, e. sales@zamano.com, t: +353 (0) 1 488 5820, www.zamano.com

* As defined by Enterprise Ireland

condra

Personally, I would like to see all premium telephony services completely outlawed.

They are barely legal scams as it is, and they profit from vunerable members of society- stupid people, horny/lonely/drunk men, and naive kids.

It's an utterly cynical and deplorable way of making money.

conner

legend73 wrote:

For those that have been subscribed without consent should take the bastards to court, TV, Radio & make sure they have the proof to back it up.

Unless Irish law is completely opposite to UK law I think you will find the onus would be on Zamano and the Network Operator to produce evidence of a valid sales agreement.

legend73

As far as I’m aware all premium txt services are all governed by the same regs and rules, so it doesn’t matter if it’s a txt or porn or games or ringtones, chat services etc. They all have the same opt in methods and opt out methods.

So far as that article it is over 1 year old and the two companies are now 1 in the same. So the services people subscribe to could come from either entity in the exact manner.

OK so looking at Zamano pre Red-Circle. % is actually based on mobile units per capita, of which Ireland is higher then both Oz the UK in 2007. For Zamano to generate revenues of 24.7 million in 07 they would need to have sent 10,000,000 txts at €2.50 or 190,000 a week - that is the number of subscribers they have. I don’t know the breakdown of Oz, Eire and UK actually works. But on a per capita of mobile phone, it would be more like 5-6% attributed to Irish traffic. But being an Irish owned company I'm even guessing that they do a lot more than that here. 5-6% would only be 9,000-11,000 subscribers which seems low to me considering the comreg stats.

After writing this I read that Zamano are more of an application provider, so they would make maybe 10% of the charges, so you can actually times everything by 10. That would mean 90,000-110,000 Irish subscribers at a guess.

mobile per capita
http://www.nationmaster.com/red/graph/med_tel_mob_iel_percap-telephones-mobile-cellular-per-capita&date=2007
Zamano revenues
http://www.zamano.com/investors/investor-news.html
Phone subscribers
http://www.mxtelecom.com/uk/smsg/premium/ie
According to this website in Sep 2006 there were - 4,372,000 phone subscribers in Ireland for that month!

I 100% agree with the point that the way they go about getting business is questionable, but it is up to the consumer to read the fine print. Try buying a house in this country! It is buyer beware. So pocket phoning, not knowing you signed up for a subscription are not the problem of the companies involved here. People have to grow up & take responsibility for there actions and be aware that the world is not a fair place. 5,000,000 Irish phone subscribers at this stage can't be all getting duped it would be a conspiracy to match how Bush got 2 terms let alone 1 in the Whitehouse.

For those that have been subscribed without consent should take the bastards to court, TV, Radio & make sure they have the proof to back it up.

I'm also thinking that seeing how they somewhat doubled the revenues in 08 that is attributed to the Red-Circle subscription numbers and acquisition.

Anyway - long w/end awaits, enjoy and dont be subscribing to a service from a poster in the mens rooms at the pub!

Hydrosylator

legend73 wrote: »

According to this article they have over 500,000 subscribers - clearly that would mean this topic would probably bring down boards.ie if that was the case.

http://www.finfacts.com/irelandbusinessnews/publish/article_1011906.shtml

Actually, according to the article, it was Red Circle, who Zamano acquired, that had over 500,000 subscribers, and those divided between UK, Australia, USA and Ireland. It the subscriptions were divided evenly by population, however unlikely, Ireland would have less than 2% of those subscriptions.

As Red Circle specialise in supplying porn to mobile phones, I'd agree that those subscriptions would be brought about by a different kind of fumbling to accidental texting.

However, this is no indicator of the success or otherwise of Zamano's in-house texting services. Neither it is an indicator of what strategies they may employ to profit from those same services.

legend73

foggy_lad wrote: »

most people only subscribe by accident because of the underhand tactics of the companies involved.

According to this article they have over 500,000 subscribers - clearly that would mean this topic would probably bring down boards.ie if that was the case.

http://www.finfacts.com/irelandbusinessnews/publish/article_1011906.shtml

legend73

Compaines do make mistakes all the time after all they are full of people. Look at all the accusations, insuiations & assumptions in this thread from all in sundry including myself.

foggy_lad

Bob Z wrote: »

Is it possible your niece wasnt lying? These things are a bit confusing. Intentionally so i think

most people only subscribe by accident because of the underhand tactics of the companies involved.

Bob Z

legend73 wrote: »

I'm guessing that if someone was to put my number in to a website, you recieve a message giving the T&C's and if you agree you're opted in. I would simply not agree, or unsubsribe like what I do with unsolicited emails.

If what you are saying Paddyo is that they sent a message that said you are subscribed without any provication then you would be spot on (that is illegal), that is exactly what my niece said, but when the facts came out she was lying, she had opted in and had confirmed the service.

The process of getting a refund was fairly painless as she was a minor, but the time wasted because of her story telling was what was really annoying.

as forest gump said, thats all i've got to say about that.

Is it possible your niece wasnt lying? These things are a bit confusing. Intentionally so i think

Hydrosylator

legend73 wrote: »

I'm guessing that if someone was to put my number in to a website, you recieve a message giving the T&C's and if you agree you're opted in. I would simply not agree, or unsubsribe like what I do with unsolicited emails.

You keep having this problem where you assume that everything is always above board where the actions of the premium text companies are concerned.

Maybe you're naive or you're digging your heels in for the sake of it. The fact is you're talking like companies never do anything wrong, and all your arguments omit the possibility that in any of these cases, the company could be in the wrong.

You say yourself that you've never had this problem because you never use any premium services (because you're not a numpty). This suggests to me that you have a deep distrust of them, which seems at odds with some of your statements here.

The fact is my auld lad's been using the Met office's weather text service for years without any problems.
When he used a voting service on an RTE show, which I add, was explicitly labelled as not being a subscription service, on a state broadcaster, the problem began.

The problem was that he began receiving service texts which bore no relation to anything he had used, and for which no evidence of subscription could be provided. Indeed, his phone statement disproved that he had ever subscribed. The service (Ztarot I think it was) was run by the same company who apparently provide RTE's text services, Zamano.

So either they had a foul up on their end (maybe their resources were under strain) or they deliberately harvested phone data for premium spamming purposes.

I agree with you that the best approach to this problem is never to give your number to anyone running such services.

My reason is that these ****ers can't be trusted, and the law is far too often on their side.

legend73

I'm guessing that if someone was to put my number in to a website, you recieve a message giving the T&C's and if you agree you're opted in. I would simply not agree, or unsubsribe like what I do with unsolicited emails.

If what you are saying Paddyo is that they sent a message that said you are subscribed without any provication then you would be spot on (that is illegal), that is exactly what my niece said, but when the facts came out she was lying, she had opted in and had confirmed the service.

The process of getting a refund was fairly painless as she was a minor, but the time wasted because of her story telling was what was really annoying.

as forest gump said, thats all i've got to say about that.