Possible scam from a company called Mobile Shop

Jaks

I have just found out that I have possibly been scammed. I have a vodafone contract (was renewed a few months ago). I recieved my bill today and found £15 worth of purchases I didn't make. Contacted Vodafone who were polite but as useless as a chocolate teapot. I was finally told that these charges were from a company called Mobile Shop . I have never heard from them and I haven't used my phone to download music, games or themes (can't afford them ). I was told to phone them. After some research I found out from a site called who calls me that this is most likely a scam that has been doing the rounds since February (that's when I got billed for these so called puchases). People have been getting 6 or more charges at £3 a time, some have been getting them the following month.

The phone number giving has a £1 minimum charge and apparantly it goes straight into voice mail.

This has happened to people on other networks.

wantmemoney

http://www.the-scream.co.uk/forums/t28779.html?

UKsal wrote:

Hi,
I don't know where to start as I am seething about the situation I find myself in.
My latest tmobile bill has 3 x £3 on it from "Payforit charge"
After contacting tmobile I was told it was nothing to do with tmobile and that I needed to contact mobile shop on either 0844 579 6345 or by email [EMAIL="info@mshop.tv"]info@mshop.tv[/EMAIL] to obtain a refund, for my subscription. (Not that I have in any way shape or form subscribed to anything)

is it this?

Jaks

It looks like it. The company was called Mobile Shop.

Thanks for the link.

uksal

Hi Jaks,

#1 don't give up. I got my money refunded from t-mobile after 5 calls. Not sure if there is any difference but weekend staff simply kept saying nothing to do with us, and actually also gave differing advice over the 4 calls I made the 1st weekend I tried to resolve it. Call Vodaphone on Monday and keep phoning until they realise they have to take notice of you.

#2 Get your phone blocked from recieiving these premium rate messages - assuming you don't want to use your phone for such things, although if you do, then you will have to put up with this potentially happening again.

#3 register your phone with TPS (if you haven't already done so)

#4 register your complaint with phonepayplus (pointless exercise in my humble opinion - but they are the only regulator we have currently) (Apparently not independant)

Other things you can also do

Please sign my petition http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Paymentbymobile/ if you haven't already done so. I realise these petitions are fairly pointless but they are availiable us so better than nothing.

Write/email to your MP. My MP said she had not had a complaint about this before mine, and had requested that the Secretary of State for Business Enterprise and Regularoty Reform look into the matter. The more people who bring this to the attention of their MP's the more likely it will be reviewed, and certainly to my mind is a tad more important issue for Gordon to be thinking about than discussing whether Princess Anne should move up the queue.

The scream website are also an excellent bunch with good information about who are behind these scams.

Good luck!

S

Jaks

I have already phoned Vodafone about this and was given the phone number for Mobile Shop (I was on hold for a while so I could speak to someone high up at vodafone).

To be honest this episode has not exactly filled me with confidence having a contract phone. I have removed my contract sim card from my phone and replaced it with a vodafone PAYT card, at least with that I might have more control.

This has all taken me by surprise as I have not open any text messages from anyone that I do not recongnise as I feared that this could happen. Despite my vigilance it happened anyway. This company has not scruples and are tageting people at random on different networks. This scam seems to begin in February this year.

I have checked my unbilled calls and I have already been charged £12 from this company with MPAY given as reference. Pretty bad as my statement only arrived yesterday.

I am planning on returning my sim card with a covering letter and a cheque to cover the line rental and call charges that are due to be paid (under no circumstances will I pay for those so called purchases from MPAY aka Mobile Shop). I will also inform Vodafone that I will pay for the rest of my contract if needs be as long as they except my cancellation.

The only way I would consider staying with Vodafone on contract is if they wipe the charges and protect their customers from scams like these by having some kind of block in place. I will also mention this in my letter.

I have checked my phone over and over again and there is nothing recieved from this company and to be honest I have never heard of them before now.
The only texts I have recieved latley are from phones4U asking me to contact them about upgrading (no chance). My current contract is around 5 months old (renewed).

I am glad that I have transferred to PAYT as before now I have been nieve about scams like this and have realised that I could be scammed at any time and still be expected to foot the bill because I have a DD set up. At least on PAYT you won't get a unexpected bill.

I don't use my phone for dowloading anything and I never have. The only pictures and music on my phone are the ones I put on myself. Why would I pay for something I can get for free. I don't even use my internet on my phone, the only times I get conected to Vodafone live is when I press the back button too many times when exiting the phone menu (the back button double for the live shortcut - I cannot change it)

Jaks

There are more disgruntled victims on whocallsme.com

http://whocallsme.com/Phone-Number.aspx/08445796345

Intasun32

@Jaks,

A few years ago I was in the same position as you, I also found that dealing with Vodafone is like hitting your head against a brick wall. For what it's worth you are not alone, these companies steal £thousands a day and nobody is prepared to do anything to protect us. :mad:

First: Follow Uksal's advice #2 and contact VF and demand that they block all incoming short codes, the five figure number that is used to send these texts. These companies obtain your number by various means, the most common is to purchase lists from companies that you have innocently used and have trusted. This is against the OFCOM & PhonePayPlus regulations but nobody cares. You MUST do this as the texts will keep coming at £1.50 a time. :mad:

Second: Follow Wantmemoney's advice and email mobile shop and demand the refund of your cash. Don't phone them on the 0870 number as you will be adding to the profit they have already made (AKA Stolen) from you.:mad:

Good luck

Jaks

Contacted Vodafone again this afternoon to give them 1 more chance to sort this out. Vodafone have agreed to refund all the charges from these scammers without much of a fight, didn't even have to threaten to cancel my contract. I was told that the £15 puchases charge has been wiped from my account and that they are going to remove any charges next month (there is £12 to billed in April so far).

What suprised me is they didn't even question me, just agreed to the refund. I was transferred to someone who took my datails of some database so it doesn't happen again. I will recieve a test confiming this within 48 hours. The worrying thing is that I questioned these people about how they got my details and what I could do to protect my self in the future - they ignored more request - the woman on the phone sounded like she was reading from some script repeating the same things over and over again.

I am now waiting to see what happens when my bill is due to be debited to check that they have removed the charges.

uksal

Well done Jaks, constantly phoning the network operator does seem to wear them down into returning the charges. However this is not good enough.

Hopefully you have also written to your MP, you can do this by email, certainly this is the quickest and probably most secure. A list of MP's with link to their email can be found:-

http://www.parliament.uk/directories/hciolists/alms.cfm

Unless we keep on about this nothing will get done - I am not naive enough to think that it will happen overnight, or even this year, but unless they keep getting pestered about it nothing will change.

julesjpg

I'm another sufferer, currently standing at £24 but going up every week even though every week I ring up and unsubscribe, also unsubscribe through the payforit part of Vodafone's website.

Vodafone refuse to help (maybe I don't bug them enough :-) ).

Although I have tried PhonepayPlus, it doesn't appear from other people's comments about them that I should hold out any hope.

I have written an e-mail to Mshop but given that they just re-subscribe me every time I contact them, I seem to be going round in circles. This is frustrating and upsetting, but it is also just plain wrong...how can companies do this and get away with it ? How many others are they fleecing through these methods ?

Sorry, more rant than helpful, but if I find a way of getting my money back I'll advise.

Jules

evenasus

I've had a similar problem. See this thread My MSE Thread
Surely this is a case for Trading Standards.
I'm married to a Trading Standards Office, so I'll show him this thread and speak to him when he gets home tonight.