Virgin claim i have sent texts to premium number that i havent plaese help

shellie_eeyore

Hi there to cut a long story short i have a virgin contract phone about 3 months ago out of the blue i recieved a text from a 5 digit number which said something along the lines of i have no panties on it was a push message i just deleated it. these carried on coming up to one a week as i was concerned my 10 year old would see them i came on here and found a way to stop them which i did by sending a "STOP" text well thats what i thought i have just spoken to virgin who inform me i have signed with 8 different premuim services which i have sent texts from my phone to including the numbers 62930, 62945, 88802 they said i have then recieved services from numbers 700038140, 700046048, 700040023 the thing is i have never signed up for anything even to the extent of at a time they say 2 of the texts were sent i was working on a hospital ward where my phone was turned off ! please can anyone tell me what i can do about this as virgin say that if it shows on my bill then i sent the texts so i have to pay all together these have cost me nearly £50 !! which as a student i havent got! virgin also say there is no way of blocking these numbers so i cant stop them! i have asked for a replacement sim card but cant think of anything else i can do please help!

grimlea

Have you checked on your bill to see if text messages were sent from your phone to those numbers, if so then you will have to pay for the texts recieved.

Did you have the phone with you at all times eg when you were at work? Its not unheard of ppl thinking its a funny joke to do this to ppl.

What have virgin advised you to do? My advice would be to get a new sim card with a different mobile number on it, that way these texts won't be recieved by you & you will not have to pay for them.

One option would be to consult Phonepayplus these guys regulate these short code messaging services here is the website

http://www.phonepayplus.org.uk/

Cavey

You have my sympathies. I don't like these short codes, the way they are being used and the annoying adverts on TV - and that's before things go wrong.

Phonepayplus doesn't know 62945, so I don't know if it is even a valid short code.

62930 is related to Ericsson IPX AB and 88802 is MX Telecom (who I think operate short codes for other people), although PPP say you need to text "STOP ALL" to get them to stop.

Anyway, I'd suggest two avenues. First is to contact the people who have been sending you texts and complain that you didn't sign up (you can get their details from the PPP site). If they can't prove it, they should send you the money it has cost you as they will not want to lose their licence.

The other is to talk to Virgin. As grimlea said, check your bill. If there is no message listed, ask Virgin to state when you allegedly signed up. If they can't show it you can see if they will reimburse you or you can complain to PhonePayPlus. If there are messages listed, find the person who used your phone to send them and ask them to contribute.

I would, however, say that getting a new SIM would be a good idea if you were on PAYG, but it's usually harder to get a new number on a contract.

Anyway, good luck!

Jon_01

Could anyone have used your phone beside you ?
The network can see all the out going texts and where they were sent, if they are saying that they can see that your phone sent the text that started the service and you didn't send it someone must have ?

grimlea

Cavey wrote: »

I would, however, say that getting a new SIM would be a good idea if you were on PAYG, but it's usually harder to get a new number on a contract.

i'm pretty sure virgin will b able to send out a new sim with a different number pretty easily, they will put it through as malicious calls & all contract info will move onto your new sim

it might take up to 5 days for sim to be delivered by royal mail, in that time u maybe without your mobile as your old sim would be disconnected

shellie_eeyore

virgin are sending me out a new sim with new number and yes im on contract.
my bills show that the texts were sent from my phone and after a lot of time going through my past bills i think i might have found an answer! back in oct i went on a car spares web site that offered to text and email you if they found your car part i never actually sent any texts from my phone but could this company have in anyway used my contact number to send these texts to other people? its the ony thing i can think of but at the time i only recieved a couple of texts about the parts both of which i deleted and never sent anything back and ive never heard anything since. the main costs on my bill are in december which i still have the texts in my phone that i recieved so know nothing has been recieved. other than that im at a loss think ill have to put it down to a bad experience and pay up!
fanally i know for definate no one else could have sent texts from my phone as it also store all the texts sent too and there certianly isnt anything from these dates.
Thanks for the advice given so far

overdraft

Think your self lucky that you have been caught for just £50, I have just been caught for £4445.38 on my 15yr olds contract phone, yes that right 4 and a 1/2 grand!! This started in December to a shortcode number run by MX telecom!! I have been in contact with PPP, I really dont know what to do...how the hell am I going to get this money back?? the child was under age!! these chat lines are meant to be for over 18s. Orange have also told me that there is another £906 owing for over 800 texts that were sent in 3 days!! Surely there has got to be some mistake? Just dont know where to turn. How the hell could Orange let a contract that has been for just £25pm rocket to this much without letting me, the bill payer know?? when we dialled 150 to check the balance these bills never showed . Big big shock. Also many thanks to the Halifax for letting this UNUSUAL amount just go out of our account no questions asked!!

princessjessica08

overdraft wrote: »

Think your self lucky that you have been caught for just £63 I have just been caught for £4445.38 on my 15yr olds contract phone, yes that right 4 and a 1/2 grand!! This started in December to a shortcode number run by MX telecom!! I have been in contact with PPP, I really dont know what to do...how the hell am I going to get this money back?? the child was under age!! these chat lines are meant to be for over 18s. Orange have also told me that there is another £906 owing for over 800 texts that were sent in 3 days!! Surely there has got to be some mistake? Just dont know where to turn. How the hell could Orange let a contract that has been for just £25pm rocket to this much without letting me, the bill payer know?? when we dialled 150 to check the balance these bills never showed . Big big shock. Also many thanks to the Halifax for letting this UNUSUAL amount just go out of our account no questions asked!!

also posted on another thread regarding short codes

No offence, but contracts are ment for over 18's as well. For the reason that people are supposed to be more responsible at this age. So if your 15yr old was on chat rooms/lines talking to people then orange aren't going to stop this, as according to them, it was an adult that signed the contract. T-mobile have a content lock on their internet, meaning that there is no access to over 18 content, included social networking sites, orange may do this too. Also ask them to put a bar on all 3rd party sms and charge to account bar, meaning that the sim would be unable to purchase anything or get anything sent to them that will charge on the bill.

Jess

KeithP

Overdraft, This is a contract phone eh?
Contracts can only be taken out by someone over 18... i.e. yourself.
How are Orange supposed to know that your 15 year old son/daughter is using the phone? As far as they know it is you who took out the contract and it is you who is racking up the bill.

Why should Orange query why a responsible person, i.e. you, was using their phone. They aren't to know whether you have just discovered a 'new feature' and liked it very much.

Did you instruct Halifax to pay these bills from Orange when requested? If the answer is yes, then that is why they did it.



Perhaps you need to talk to your son/daughter about responsibilities. But I guess you have probably already done that.

overdraft

I understand that the parent takes the responsibility for the contract but £4k!! be reasonable!! these scams need to be sorted out!!
I checked his orange account and these charges were'nt listed!!
Orange were only able to offer a partial block on outgoing txts and calls but it was the incoming ones that were racking up the money!! so I have had to terminate the contract... on doing a bit of research on the net since this happened it does seem that many of these problems stem from UNSOLICITED texts, so to me this just seems like a form of bank robbery

Cavey

The bad news is that if you take out a contract, it is you who is responsible for the charges on the contract. If you don't make it safe for under-age persons to not have access to premium content, it is you who is responsible, not the phone company. It should probably not be this way, but it is. Ditto for limiting the bill. I wish I could limit my phone as it worries me what could happen if I lose it for even an hour, but the phone companies don't seem to be able (or maybe willing) to do it effectively.

Good news is that it sounds peculiar. £4445.38 corresponds to around 3000 premium reverse charged messages. If you think about the next 800 texts, sending and receiving this number of messages is usually quite obvious.

What you need to do is check the bill and ask your child if they made those messages. While I would not want to admit to it if I was in their place, they really need to be honest about it. Between this and the bill, you should be able to tell if the charges were legitimately incurred, if MX are trying to pull a fast one or if there was a billing "hiccup". Depending on which of these is the case is how you address the problem.

The moral of this story is to never give a contract phone for which you are liable to anyone else. You may trust them, you may love them, but it is not worth the hassle. PAYG may not be as cool and may not result in such a nice handset, but it is far less worrying.