HELP! TEXT MESSAGE SCAM!

lenny

I think we've been caught on some kind of scratchcard scam.We thought we'd won a prize in a sunday paper scratchcard last summer....I know, one born every minute etc.
We texted (on my wife's mobile phone)the number given and were instructed to send an s.a.e. to claim the prize .
We didnt follow it through and didn't think any more about it.Since then my wife has recieved a number of what she thought were "junk"text messages on her mob, asking her to ring a number to claim a prize-she just deleted them.
She got her phone bill (six months worth of calls-the phone is owned by her employers who only send the bills through every 3-6 months)yesterday and found that she'd been charged £1.27 for each time this company contacted her, totalling £30+!!

The bill just shows"TEXT INFO SERVICES", no company name .
Anyone been had by this scam, or better still,can anyone help us avoid paying these b%$*%*&$s?
>:(

lenny

Just re -read my post-I don't think we can get any money back from these people. This post is more of a warning to others.

robnye

my daughter did a similar thing with downloading a mobile tune.

at the time the leaflet said it was cheap, but eventually cost her £1.50+, she has recieved several txts since each claiming to be 'information text', but cost her £1.50

she cant find the original leaflet (silly girl), short of getting a new sim card,
does any one know how we can find out who is sending and stop it?

student100

If you get in touch with your network's customer services they should be able to advise you, they can probably block the texts or something, and they may be able to take some action against the company sending the texts.

VelvetGlove

There but for the grace of god...

In the past I have texted in entries on I think it was Cadbury's wrappers to see if I won a prize - luckily I haven't had any problems like this!

I thought sending a text out was safe & would just be the 10p I pay for text messages, I didn't realise you could get conned into paying for messages you had even asked for!

Thank you for this thread, I won't be texting anything else in future as it just sounds too expensive!

System

Has anyone recieved such texts on O2?

I have received several texts on my O2 phone saying that I'll be charged £1.5 for downloading tictactoe. I have not downloaded anyhting at all. When I contacted O2 customer services, they said that they are about 48 hours behind with the accounting. Despite requesting a block on such texts, I'm still getting them.

Can anyone give me some advise about what I can do?
Savee

Mister.G_3

If you have ANY problems with these whatsoever contact your network provider. Try to retain at least one of the sms' as they will come from a 4-5 digit code beginning with 8. If you give your network provider this they will be able to trace the provider. Also - on your call records with the network they have an additional 'service feature code' they can use to trace it. They can't unfortunately credit back for any charges incurred by these texts though but can provide contact details to get in touch with the company sending the sms' I work in tech. support for a mobile phone company and deal with incidents regarding these scummy companys on a daily basis - they really do give the mobile industry a bad name! ??? I'll get down off my soapbox now

Paul_Varjak

Unsolicited text messages are now illegal:

http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/tps/

Mancunian

I've been hit by this...... receiving 'adult theme' texts taking £1.50 a time!! I am on pay and go so unless u keep an eye on your balance its hard to keep track.

The short codes I received texts from were:-

84069
89114
84252

After calling o2 they said most of the texts seem to have originated from:-

Stream
PO BOX 4341
London
W1A 7TS

Tel 0870 0234567.

I have given them a few calls over the past few weeks and a lady called Tessa usually answers. She promised I would be called back but nothing yet.

will keep u posted.

Bagpuss_3

We had a similar problem with my sons mobile, again adult related material, what we can gather he texted a number from a magazine and immediatley tried to cancel it, but was locked into it for a month, within 5 or 6 days he had reached his monthly limit (lucky for us we got him a contract with a monthly cap). When we realized what had happened my husband contacted Vodafone who gave us the number of the company who were sending the texts, when my husband explained that my son is only 15 they were very apologetic and said they would put a cheque in the post. We received the cheque for £39.00 by the end of the week. Like the internet it is very difficult to police what our children havesuch easy access too. ???

MumboJumbo_3

Another similar scam - according to my Orange phone bill, I received 1 'sexy chat' text message per day for 14 days at £1.28 each.
I didn't bother to read them - simply deleted them.
Getting fed up I read the last one and it said they would stop if I text'd back STOP which I did and they did actually stop.
I didn't realise that I was being charged for them until I got my bill.
Furious, I rang Orange who said they could do nothing about it but did give me a company name - MSN Adult Chat - and a telephone number - 0870 0460047.
I rang the number and a message said the number was 'disconnected' but to ring 0871 8725169 which I did. I got a holding message which cut me off after about 5 minutes. Was this a premium rate number ?
I have never downloaded ringtones or anything similar so have no idea how they got my number.
My next action is to get back to Orange as it is they who actually charged me, so they must have received some sort of fraudulent authority from these bums at 'MSN Adult Chat'.
Surely Orange must take some responsibility and make a refund - any ideas anyone?