£1.50 text charge?????

carolwat · 7 June 2007 at 10:15PM

I have today received my mobile phone bill from Virgin and I have been charged £1.50 for receiving a text. I have never ever signed up for any kind of subscription thing. I have received three strange texts last week, two for something abut prize donkey and I cant even remember what the other one was. I remember telling my husband I had started to get junk texts, ive had this number for years and never had any before. I havnt received anything since.

I rang virgin who looked at this for me but couldnt tell me the company who was charging me and I mentioned the above texts. She told me if I get anymore to reply with the word stop and they would stop. Is that true. How do I find out how this has happened so it doesnt keep happening. I honestly havnt ever subscribed to anything and noone has had access to my phone either.

Thanks in advance
Carol

judgej · 8 June 2007 at 7:18AM

this happened to me last week. I had 60 pounds taken off my phone in three days. Your service provider can give you details of the company sending the messages and then you should contact ICTIS on 0800 500 212 and they will tell you what you need to do next. I did this and managed to get a cheque back for the money taken. hope this helps

carolwat · 8 June 2007 at 9:41AM

As I said above I have already spoken to my provider and they are unable to give me the details because they just dont have them. They did try for me but they cant get the company name from the details they have.

Thanks anyway and im thankful it was just £1.50 and not £60.

Carol

MrRincewind · 8 June 2007 at 10:00AM

who ever you spoke to at your network is either incompetent or lazy, all they had to do was look in your call history and get the short code number of the text message and then go here http://www.icstis.org/consumers/ncd/DisplayServiceDetails.asp

and put the code in "look up a number" this then would have given you the name and contact details, you can do this yourself if you have the short code to hand, might be handy for future use just in case you recieve any more

carolwat · 8 June 2007 at 10:03AM

How would I get the code you talk about. The number on my bill is 700035342 Text Service Received £1.50

Nothing comes up on the site you mention above. I was on the phone to virgin for quite a while why the lady tried to find out for me so she did do something although I dont know what.

Thanks
Carol

judgej · 8 June 2007 at 10:21AM

If I was you, I'd just call ICSTIS on the free phone number I gave you earlier. They are a governing body who are there to sort out these sort of problems and will be able to tell you exactly what information your provider should give you.Don't give up as there must be lots of money getting made from the likes of us!

MrRincewind · 8 June 2007 at 10:32AM

If you put that number in ICSTIS this is the company and contact details it brings up, you have to add a 0 at the start of the number to make it valid, so should be imputted as such (0700035342).

Company name: Vodafone Ltd
Contact: Customer Services Department
Phone number: 191 from Vodafone handset. 07836 191191 from landline

like judgej says i would still contact ICSTIS and report the abuse.

carolwat · 8 June 2007 at 10:48AM

I have just called ICSTIS but they cant help without the short code so referred me back to Virgin. Virgin cant find it but they have filled a form in which means they will find it another way through the net etc and will get back to me within two weeks. I know its not much and nowhere near £60 but its the principal of the matter. I have never ever subscribed to any text service.

Thanks again
Carol

Wayne3765 · 19 June 2007 at 10:32AM

I'm with Virgin on a pay as you go mobile , checked my account today and found I've been charged £1.50 for receiving a text message similar to this ~
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Here is your passcode 9E5ZM Visit www.focgifts.com to complete your membership. For help call 0871 310 8340. 10p per Min.[/FONT]

I never asked for it and I've never heard of the sender until I got the text.
I looked on FOCgifts.com ( Contact address:- Fantastic 4 Mobile Limited, PO box 892, Girne, Mersin 10, Turkey. ) and it says ~

(d) A user will be charged £1.50 by SMS once they have entered their valid passcode. This is a one time membership fee and is NOT a competition or re-occuring subscription charge.

Obviously that's rubbish as I've been charged without replying to the text or entering a passcode anywhere :mad: I've sent an email to Virgin but is there anything else I can do to make sure I don't get anymore like that ?

Wayne3765 · 20 June 2007 at 3:38PM

Need more characters to bump thread back up.

shareef · 20 June 2007 at 5:15PM

I have the same problem, but am with o2. God knows how they got the number as I only use it for dialing out to access numbers. Damn them, going to have to ring o2. Let me know what Virgin say!

£1.50 text charge?????

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