Recurring charges on mobile bill - app subscription??

musey · 1 May 2012 at 11:15PM

Ok so this is going to sound really dumb, my OH uses an iphone 4s. We notice his bill last month was higher than usual, anyway with a little digging we found 4 payments of £1.667 so called phone co. and was informed it would be a subscription to something. Now OH is adamant he hasn't subscribed to anything, so we were told it would likely be an app. He only downloads games and just the free ones or possibley 69p never anything dearer and is sure he hasn't subscribed to anything. I can't see any messages that correspond with the date. So am at an absolute loss, if he has no clue what he has subscribed to how on earth do we stop it?

I know it's silly but am really stumped, the best phone co. could come up with was change the number?? Its his business phone so number changing would be a pain.

This is a duplicate post of one I placed in the Techie forum (sorry if duplicate posting isn't allowed just hoping for some help/suggestions)

grumbler · 1 May 2012 at 11:27PM

What's "so called phone co."?
Your provider has to tell you what exactly company they are collecting the money for (and keeping a lion share of).
Then you can contact the company, and claim all the stolen money back. If they refuse and cannot prove that he actually 'subscribed', then you can sue either the company or your provider.

Mr_Toad · 2 May 2012 at 12:15AM

Aren't there some games that let you 'buy' upgrades in the game that cost real money?

diamonds · 2 May 2012 at 12:25AM

Dunno, games are for children (or child-like adults!)

SaLoGo · 2 May 2012 at 7:35AM

masonn wrote: »

Aren't there some games that let you 'buy' upgrades in the game that cost real money?

You get billed separately from iTunes for stuff like that. It wouldn't show up on a bill from your mobile network provider.

musey · 5 May 2012 at 10:21AM

Many thanks for the responses I made contact with Apple and we checked all of the apps on his phone, none were found to have a recurring charge so I ended up going back to "Orange". The person I spoke to that time was massively helpful, she found out what company was making the charge, found me a link to their website which she emailed me all in the space of 5 mins. Why the first person (and her manager) I spoke to couldn't offer the same level of customer service is beyond me. I seem to have had the 2 ends of the spectrum of customer service.

With all that said OH is still £14 down (not much I know but in true MSE fashion it galls me to think a company has had that money). We've found that he apparently signed up to mobi village for something called ifortune, OH would never have signed up for anything like that and the date and time provided on the bill is when OH was at work so we're totally confused.

Is there any mileage in contacting the company to ask for proof of signup etc?

musey · 5 May 2012 at 10:29AM

now knowing who the company is I have done a search on MSE and found similar cases with this company here http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?p=52586621&highlight=ifortune#post52586621 so I'll be having a good read and seeing if I can pursue it.

Sandi_L · 16 June 2012 at 3:01PM

I upgraded my contract with Orange earlier this year (receiving my first Android phone) and within a week was hit with a weekly charge of £1.25. It is definitely nothing I have downloaded/set up/agreed to and no children or other adults handle the phone.
How is this company obtaining new numbers.......??

Unfortunately I didn't spot this for a couple of months. When I contacted Orange they didn't know what I was being charged for but indicated they thought I had downloaded some game with weekly updates (I hadn't). They told me to text STOP to 60113. I received a reply from "Mobi Village" - hopefully the charges will now stop.

This (scam?) seems to be a huge problem at the moment - Orange Customer Services staff say they are receiving a huge number of telephone calls about this issue and their response time to email enquiries has moved from 2 to 7 days.

I have asked for a refund from Orange as I have my contract with them......but am still waiting for their decision......different staff take different approaches. Orange have a customer complaints policy - see their website - don't accept their first refusal, you can ask for a review of the decision.

sdduk · 16 June 2012 at 4:56PM

Someone posted this a while back and it dose work i have done it on my iPhone its a good tip.

You may not get your money back.

But whenever I purchase anything "in-app" I have to re key my password so there is no possibility of accidental purchases the steps all seem clear to me, you are shown a monitry value of the purchase, you choose to purchase it, and you key in your password.

There is a parental setting that you can use to switch off the "in app" purchases.
Go to “Settings” -> “General”.
Scroll to “Restrictions” and tap the “Enable Restrictions” button.
You’ll be asked to set a passcode which will be used to lock certain iOS functions.
Scroll down to the “Allowed Content” section and slide the “In-App Purchases” to “Off.”

DUTR · 16 June 2012 at 7:52PM

musey wrote: »

Many thanks for the responses I made contact with Apple and we checked all of the apps on his phone, none were found to have a recurring charge so I ended up going back to "Orange". The person I spoke to that time was massively helpful, she found out what company was making the charge, found me a link to their website which she emailed me all in the space of 5 mins. Why the first person (and her manager) I spoke to couldn't offer the same level of customer service is beyond me. I seem to have had the 2 ends of the spectrum of customer service.

With all that said OH is still £14 down (not much I know but in true MSE fashion it galls me to think a company has had that money). We've found that he apparently signed up to mobi village for something called ifortune, OH would never have signed up for anything like that and the date and time provided on the bill is when OH was at work so we're totally confused.

Is there any mileage in contacting the company to ask for proof of signup etc?

ifortune Description

ifortune - print a random, hopefully interesting, adage. Without feeling guilty about cutting trees, or eating too much sugar now enjoy these fortune quips on your iPhone.

This is the best fortune cookie application, more database to be added soon... get it now!!

However according to thegoodman, this can never occur on apple products, sounds in effect to be a malware :rotfl:
Hope you get it resolved though

Julieb_2 · 3 July 2012 at 9:48PM

Hi all,

I discovered last week that this had happened to me, my phone bill was a bit higher than normal but thought it was due to me going over my internet bundle. When I checked my bill, I found a weekly charge of £1.667 on a Tuesday & £1.25 on a Monday. I phoned Orange & got through to their call centre in India, the language barrier was frustrating but she was reasonably helpful. After speaking to her manager, she gave me the email address & phone no of Buongiorno and said that it was a subscription that I had agreed to for Mobi Village - ifortune, which I definately hadn't. There was a thought in the back of my mind that my son may have accepted a pop up whilst playing on my phone but there was no trace of this company or app on my phone.
I emailed the address and complained, my email is below. Amazingly, I have received an email from them confirming that £47 would be refunded by Paypal, when I logged in, it was there in my Paypal account.

I added together the charges from recent bills which was £38, but perhaps the charges had been deducted for longer than I had thought?

"I found out today that my orange mobile account (***********) has been charged for a weekly subscription to your company for a service that I have never signed up for or authorised, I have never heard of your website and have never agreed to your services. I have already spoken to your customer service team and sent a text to stop this immediately and am now emailing for an immediate refund of all charges applied to date.

I also plan to take this complaint further and would like to know the name of UK Government regulatory agency which governs your conduct, I will also contact Trading Standards as there are many complaints from other Orange users. Please supply this information and confirm a refund without delay.
Many thanks"

Good luck all

Recurring charges on mobile bill - app subscription??

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