Mobiplanet SMS scam (57976)

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Which Three should really have done by default, and given you the chance to opt-in if you wanted, if they had their customers' interests at heart. But presumably they get some cut of the fees so...

Not permitted unless you request it. and why just Three?

Imagine if they did that and you decided to use pay by text for parking and the default meant it was switched off.?

You'd then be claiming that the mobile network was wrong for that.

flower tattoo wrote: »

I requested refund off 57976 & 57977 - they maintain they’re different companies
Red27 & moonlight mobile but the emails were identical and so were the amounts refunded €18.97 back to PayPal instead of €20 but it’s close enough

It's not close enough. Make those poxy bastards repay you in full. If they still make a euro every time someone they scam complains, they're laughing.

Morrisseeee wrote: »

My daughter's phone bill (on GOMO) shot up from €10pm to €17.50 last month.
After some investigating I discovered 3 * 57976 texts @ €2.50 each. She said she didn't subscribe to anything !
Q. Do I just block the number or what can be done?
Who gets the money ? do GOMO pass it on to owners of 57976 ? I wonder do the phone operators get a cut of it as well !!

Very same issue without my daughter replying to their initial text, I only noticed it when the monthly bill came out. I sent stop to the service so hopefully that will stop it. They got 2 x €7.50. I also send a complaint to support@red27mobile.com and asking for the €15 back as there was no reply sent to their unsolicited text.

I also logged into the GOMO account and attempted to bar premium SMS but it's greyed out meaning they have to do it for you. I opened a webtext screen and sent my request every half hour for 3 hours but no reply, maybe their support person didn't turn up today. I think it will bar the sending of premium SMSs but still be able to receive them so might not be a lot of use.

Their reply below.

Dear .........,

Thank you for contacting Red 27 Mobile.

Your enquiry relates to the consumption of an online entertainment subscription service called Mobizone, providing gaming and game related applications on your mobile phone.

The service is promoted via banner advertising often seen in applications, on Google, YouTube or related third-party publisher sites on your mobile phone. In order to activate a subscription, a consumer must follow the below steps:

The user will find the above described banner advertising, and upon clicking,
will be redirected to the service landing page where given the opportunity to answer a question in order to enter the competition. Upon selecting the answer, the user is shown a pop-up where to enter their phone number to verify the subscription via double opt-in.
This page features further information relating to the service, including the content but most importantly the price, frequency and terms and conditions. To activate the service and confirm acceptance of the terms, the user must first click the “Enter” confirmation button.
Upon confirmation, the user is sent a text message, to which they are asked to respond to in order to verify and complete the subscription process.
Whilst I am hopeful that the above information assists in your enquiry, in case that you remain aggrieved, I would like to take the opportunity to add some additional points for your consideration:

Maybe it is possible that someone else has access to your mobile device (friends, family or children).
Perhaps you were not aware that it is possible to activate mobile subscription services via your mobile device.This is then billed via your mobile telephone bill.
Perhaps you activated the free trial to access the service and simply forgot to deactivate the service prior to further billing.
Please check your text message inbox for welcome/reminder messages from our service.
Nonetheless, I can confirm that your subscription is now cancelled and no further billing will occur. I sincerely hope that the details above have helped to explain and alleviate any concerns you may have. However, should you remain dissatisfied with the above explanation, you are welcome to escalate your complaint via our internal escalations process. Should you wish to do this, please kindly reply to this email with the below information:

- Your mobile phone number
- Your reasons for complaint escalation
- Confirmation that you are the owner or bill payer – we simply require a date of a billing transaction or a brief description of a text message received from the service (or a screenshot of a text message from our service will also suffice). Sorry, this is due to GDPR and Data Protection!

Note: If you are not the bill payer, please provide confirmation that you have permission to discuss the transaction with the bill payer.

Thank you sincerely for your time and I wish you a good day.

Best regards,

Customer Support

Red27 Mobile

I replied to them and made the mistake that I reported the incident to the Ombudsman but it didn't seem to matter as it looks like I'm getting the full amount back. They offered me half on the first email and full on the 2nd email. They probably operate on the assumption that most people won't go to the bother of complaining and they away with 90% or so. If they pay up it will have been painless enough. I went through similar before for €110 and got the money back by contacting Comreg but they dragged it out to the last day before Comreg could legally intervene.

Here are my email exchanges, following the initial email, for those who want to follow up on getting a refund, maybe change "Ombudsman" to Comreg.

Me "Thanks for your reply, I have opened a case with the ombudsman office. I will update you in due course."

Them "Dear xxxxxxx,

Thank you for escalating your claim via our internal complaints escalation process.

After further investigation, I can confirm that your subscription was activated in line with the standard processes and expectations of the service flow, as hosted by our third-party payment provider.

Nonetheless and in consideration of your unfortunate dissatisfaction, I would like to offer you a refund for the last week of your subscription, totalling €7.50, by way of full and final settlement of your complaint.

Should this be acceptable, please respond with your Paypal address or bank details (IBAN + SWIFT written correctly), so we may promptly process the refund.

Best regards,

Customer Support

Red27 Mobile


Me "Thanks for the offer but I will continue with the ombudsman until I get the full amount back."


Them "Dear xxxxxxx,

My director approved your full refund request for the amount of 15 euro as a gesture of goodwill and in order to move on.
Please provide us with your Paypal address or bank details (IBAN + SWIFT written correctly), so we may proceed.

Best regards,

Customer Support

Red27 Mobile"



Meanwhile GOMO have implemented barring of premium SMSs on the mobile account. Had to send them a support message as nobody was responding to the Webtext support option.

Joe Public wrote: »

I replied to them and made the mistake that I reported the incident to the Ombudsman but it didn't seem to matter as it looks like I'm getting the full amount back. They offered me half on the first email and full on the 2nd email. They probably operate on the assumption that most people won't go to the bother of complaining and they away with 90% or so. If they pay up it will have been painless enough. I went through similar before for €110 and got the money back by contacting Comreg but they dragged it out to the last day before Comreg could legally intervene.

Here are my email exchanges, following the initial email, for those who want to follow up on getting a refund, maybe change "Ombudsman" to Comreg.

Me "Thanks for your reply, I have opened a case with the ombudsman office. I will update you in due course."

Them "Dear xxxxxxx,

Thank you for escalating your claim via our internal complaints escalation process.

After further investigation, I can confirm that your subscription was activated in line with the standard processes and expectations of the service flow, as hosted by our third-party payment provider.

Nonetheless and in consideration of your unfortunate dissatisfaction, I would like to offer you a refund for the last week of your subscription, totalling €7.50, by way of full and final settlement of your complaint.

Should this be acceptable, please respond with your Paypal address or bank details (IBAN + SWIFT written correctly), so we may promptly process the refund.

Best regards,

Customer Support

Red27 Mobile


Me "Thanks for the offer but I will continue with the ombudsman until I get the full amount back."


Them "Dear xxxxxxx,

My director approved your full refund request for the amount of 15 euro as a gesture of goodwill and in order to move on.
Please provide us with your Paypal address or bank details (IBAN + SWIFT written correctly), so we may proceed.

Best regards,

Customer Support

Red27 Mobile"



Meanwhile GOMO have implemented barring of premium SMSs on the mobile account. Had to send them a support message as nobody was responding to the Webtext support option.

Fair dues boy

L1011 wrote: »

They make money off it; Comreg makes money off the PRS operator licence. Neither cares to stop it.

Lobby your TDs, particularly any vocal opposition or wobbly Green ones.

It seems clear to me that there is a tolerance of this kind of scamming by ComReg. On the face of it, their position and that of the network operators seems reasonable; however, both are actively encouraging these scam operators by their behaviour and lack of action.

Network operators: “nothing to do with us, we just provide the communication infrastructure”.
ComReg: “we regulate the services, we publish a set of regulations, service providers must register and must have a complaints procedure.”
Service provider (aka scammer): responds to complaint with some generic nonsense, will offer a paltry “goodwill gesture” amount when pressed and only give a full refund when really, really pressed.

Most people will either not bother to work out how to go about complaining, will complain to the wrong place and/or give up somewhere along the line.

I was caught out when my daughter’s phone clocked up over €100 in charges on one of these services (completely innocently; she never subscribed and had been trying herself to make them stop over three months). I got a full refund, but only after multiple emails.

It strikes me there is a fool proof opportunity for scamming people that at the moment has no prospect of being stopped:

- Implement some type of bogus service that exploits security vulnerabilities to leak customers phone numbers as they click on certain Web sites (which is entirely possible, apparently)
- Start sending premium rate texts to the harvested number
- Make the required STOP message a premium one, so it never gets sent (in my daughter’s case), or just ignore them
- Here’s the really clever bit: when the customer complains, stop sending the messages. If they persist with the complaint, offer a small amount as a goodwill gesture; if they really persist up it a bit and if necessary ultimately give them a full refund

The clever bit is that last one: anyone approaching ComReg will be asked “Have you exhausted the provider’s compliant procedure yet?” The answer will be no, in which case they go back and ultimately get a full refund. Once they have the refund, if they then go to ComReg they are told: what are you complaining about, you have a full refund?

It’s a brilliant scam: you can go on indefinitely with no fear of being “caught” or sanctioned. The network operators facilitate it by enabling (or refusing to fix) the leaking of mobile numbers on their network: they get their cut of the revenue. The service provider only needs a percentage of people not to go the whole road to a full refund to make it pay. And ComReg? Whose side are they on?

king2 wrote: »

I have been emailing this address this yesterday. After several stiff emails they have finally agreed to a full refund. I am trying to find out now though if there were any charges made after the last one on the bill. €7.50 was being taken every week on the 8th, 15th and 24th august, the texts were only stopped yesterday so presumably there were 2 more charges of 7.50 taken on the 31st August and 7th September.


Its totally disgraceful that this highway robbery is permitted by the powers that be. Comreg really need to get their finger out and do something about this.

GoMo seem to have a cap of €30/month on these, which limites the number every month.

I would just assume the payments were taken in the dates you mention (assuming they don't go over the monthly cap) and just demand a full refund.

My experience was very similar: I just jept asking for a full refund (by email) and rejected all offers until I got it.

The refund arrived in my account within a couple of days.

Make sure you request them to block sending you any more messages.

You can also ask GoMo to block receipt of all premium rate messages.

contacted Gomo via facebook. They say they cant check if there have been more charges until next months bill is issued, hard to understand why

PickYourName wrote: »

I think if I were you, I'd:

- assume the messages did continue to be sent at the same frequency
- work out how much they owe you if they did
- claim for that amount
- if they dispute the amount and claim only the ones you know about were sent, accept that amount
- tell them you agree to that as full and final settlement for messages up to that date, but you reserve the right to claim at a future time for any received after that date

That way you're not waiting on either party to provide further information and you can get a refund now for the ones you know about (and maybe more).

I did that, they are to refund by paypal, have to wait for next bill to see if there were further charges. I will be getting on to comreg about it also

PickYourName wrote: »

Ah, OK: well done. I misunderstood: I thought you were waiting to get confirmation of the exact amount owed before proceeding.

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for any response from ComReg, other than something along the lines that if you've been refunded the case is closed in their eyes and you've no further claim.

Comreg are not doing their job if thats the attitude they take. UME limited are robbing people and probably getting away with it in the majority of cases. Its not acceptable that they do nothing about it

PickYourName wrote: »

That's exactly the point I was making in post #79 above.

Did you try complaining to any TDs?!! So the scam starts if you just click on a link and they get your mobile number through security vulnerabilities. Are these vulnerabilities the responsibility of the network provider? Is the link you click on an ad for the Company running the scam or ad for something else?

PickYourName wrote: »

Most people will either not bother to work out how to go about complaining, will complain to the wrong place and/or give up somewhere along the line.

I was caught out when my daughter’s phone clocked up over €100 in charges on one of these services (completely innocently; she never subscribed and had been trying herself to make them stop over three months). I got a full refund, but only after multiple emails.

Same. I just hope people in this situation will google it and some will end up reading this. You will get all your money back if you persist!