HELP! TEXT MESSAGE SCAM!

peterbaker

Tozer, your lawyer experience seems to have got you stuck in a single style i.e. to strenuously deny corporate wrongdoing at every turn. I smile when lawyers say such and such an approach is 'misguided' or 'misconceived'. These are 'polite' criticisms which I guess originate when lawyers or budding lawyers are criticising each others' performance in applying concepts, exactitudes and precedents whilst they are learning the trade. Yet they seem more and more used as a veiled way of insulting the other side in actual litigation. Maybe it isn't your fault, Tozer, if you have made your living on the same type of cases for too long.

But how you can come here and say there is no fraud amazes me. Obtaining money by deception is fraud.

Millions of mobile phone customers are being plagued daily by parasites holding reverse charge accounts with the networks. The public has to be constantly on their guard in ways that most people (especially kids) cannot possibly understand in order to avoid fraudulent charges to their accounts. These charges may come from from several directions when they innocently respond to organisations at one end of the scale like "Free Msg", who send texts with internet links to "free" ring tones, and 81252 at the other end of the spectrum who send texts requesting one word text responses tempting HomesSex Vid action. I have texts from both in the last ten days. They are effectively mini-bombs in my Inbox.

Nothing in these texts mentions a charge, but if you make one false electronic move on your handset like hit the "Fetch" button, you might easily trigger a stream of reverse charge texts much like you'd flood the kitchen if you tried to fix leaking tap washer without an ounce of plumbing nouse. Once that has happened, all it takes is for you to just open a reverse charge text to see what kind of floodgate you may have opened this time, for you then to be charged outrageous amounts by your network.

Worse than these are the arrangements the networks allow with parasites that masquerade as the network itself, or are in fact a department within the network provider company, or are triggered by some innocent activity on the network's own website (like requesting favorite team goal alerts from Orange) and these are the ones I am particularly annoyed about.

If you walk into a shop and hand over your credit card for something you've seen in the window, you do not expect to find your credit card debited by sundry other amounts for things you did not request. That generally would be evidence of card fraud if it happened. Moreover you do not expect any sensible person to suggest that the mere act of walking into the shop and handing over your card is evidence that you entered into a contract which explains and justifies the spurious debits from your account.

Furthermore, you do not expect your card company to say it is nothing to do with them when you complain to them about it, do you?


With the advent of reverse charge texts, a mobile phone account is in some ways like a card acount. The account provider has a duty to safeguard the accountholder from fraud.


Applying your mindset as kindly as I can to this problem, I suppose you are tring to press a point that there is no fraud until it is proven? If that is your standpoint then I suggest you retreat into your lawyer office and wait until the phone rings with an invitation to argue one such matter in court. Until then, the rest of us with no conflict of interest will call it as we see it, and that includes telling people who do have a conflict of interest and are plainly not helping to get out of the way.


BTW, did I say anything about corporate taxation law? I suggested merely that a company would be guilty of illegal accounting irregularities if it had placed itself in a position where it was unable to show exactly where it had sent money that it had charged to / deducted from customer's accounts without their knowledge. I make no suggestion about the corporate tax position of such irregularities.

Tozer

Wow such an angry guy!

Two main points rather than taking each point in turn.

1. My profession is entirely irrelevant. I treat people with respect and would expect to be treated with respect in turn. Some of your comments regarding call-centre staff are nasty.

2. If you actually look at my post I said "It is not aiding and abeting fraud as there is no intent on the part of the network - actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea - or there is no guilty act without a guilty mind. " (emphasis added. I haven't made any comment in relation to the organisation that sent the SMS so probably best you check your facts before yet another rampage.

There is no fraud on the part of the network as there is no culpable intent. Go and have a chat to the Police and see how far that gets you. So don't feel amazed, just have an understanding of what the criminal law requires...and always has done.

Sorry but I took your comment "they themselves are committing a corporate accounting offence " to be a reference to corporate taxation laws under which offences could be committed. Not quite sure what you meant but there is no requirement for companies to provide a complete sales breakdown to customers.

Bamber19

Walter Mitty doesn't have a thing on this guy.

wantmemoney

peterbaker wrote:

Forget the regulator (sic)

I warned about this some weeks ago.

The answer is to create merrie hell with your network provider. Tell them in no uncertain terms that you can reach no other sensible conclusion that unless they stop it immediately then they are allowing their accounts to be used to aid and abet FRAUD!

The first person you speak to is likely not to understand the gravitas of your accusation. Escalate your call as soon as possible during your complaint.

Your network provider is likely at first to deny knowledge of how the amounts have been charged by suggesting that it is a Third Party and they cannot intervene. Cut through that bullsh|t and tell them that if it appeared on your account with them then they had better have proper accounting records or they themselves are committing a corporate accounting offence to add to that of aiding and abetting a fraud. They will soon break off to access their systems and then tell you exactly how many £1.50 texts have been charged, and when, and to which premium "reverse charge" text numbers.

Then tell them to re-credit your account by the amount fraudulently taken. They may argue the toss about the manner of the recredit. They may call it a goodwill gesture. It is up to you to decide if that is acceptable.

You may need to assist them to prevent further debits to your account by sending "STOP" by SMS to any of the numbers you can identify, and they identify (from their 'non existent' records which miraculously appear when you turn up the heat ).

Good luck!

on 13 February 2006 the City of London Police met with Network Operators:

http://www.phonepayplus.org.uk/pdfs_news/COLPNetwork06.pdf
• If a Network becomes aware of criminal activity but chooses to turns a blind
eye, the Network may fall into the criminal arena by committing an offence
under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
• If a Network takes money (and keeps it or passes it on) that has been made as
a result of criminality (that they knew or suspected was criminal), the Network
may also be committing an offence.