Unclaimed Accident Commpensation

crazyguy

Is it just me or are there a lot of others being hounded with these sms messages.

Come from a variety of numbers normaly start +44, and read as follows.

You have still not claimed the compensation for the accident you had ( amounts varie from £2800.00 to £3750.00 ) Reply CLAIM for more info.

I must be getting sent in the region of 3-5 a week from a handfull of numbers does not give you the option to unsubscribe, this alone breaches the 2003 Electronic Communications EC Directive and the 1998 Data Protection Act.

Have tried my network to no avail say they cannot barr the number as its not a premium one, was advised to speak to the Police so made a quick call and again was told not much they can do.

The amount of people getting these is on the rise and the ICO are looking at a number of complaints, I doubt though that if the source is found they would get much more than a slap on the rist and told not to send out countless sms again.

In all seriousness I must have received in the region of 120-150 in the last 6 months alone and am getting a bit annoyed to say the least.

Anyway have used this website :http://www.numberingplans.com/?page=analysis&sub=phonenr

To locate the network and Country of origin and it is O2 and UK based so Friday just gone have fired off an email to the MD of O2 and stated my case against this Company, I pressume its just on using different numbers as the message is allways the same but just different amounts of compensation in and comes from a handfull of numbers, I doubt they will be very forthcoming though due to Data Protection, however I did also add that I understand this rule and if they could at the very least forward my number onto the owner and ask that they ring me.

The reason being as I have sent in stop and also INFO on a number of occasions now and to date have never received one single phone call, I have aslo since found numerous other complaints, ( updated not the one listed ) ( will put in the correct name as and when I get it )

Hopefully If I find out who the owner of the number is at some point they will be getting Court Documents sent to them for a number of issues, Data Protection, Harassment and the Electronic Act.

If anyone else knows anything about this Company then please give details, also as and when I find out more information I will post that in due course.

I would also add that replying in any way may also get your details put onto numerous other lists.

grumbler

PAYG sim cards are distributed without any questions asked. If you want to nail them pretend that you did have an accident and at some point you will be given their real contact details.

crazyguy

grumbler wrote: »

PAYG sim cards are distributed without any questions asked. If you want to nail them pretend that you did have an accident and at some point you will be given their real contact details.

I have a good idea its a pay n go sim card and its deffinatly computer generated, like I said have replied info in the hopes of getting a phone call back, this has not happened.

I probably get on average some 20 sms messages a week all for one form of finance or another so now I put down yes or claim to get a call back and state that I have a ton of debts or an accident just to find out there Company name the only issue is that a lot of these people who phone you will just refuse to give out the Company name as I tell them I will not deal with an unknown company it can be 50/50 as to wether I get there full name in order to have my details removed.

As to me putting my info down some where I have not done this it was all due to an ID theft nearly a year ago and since that point have gradualy got my details removed from countless lists.

OneADay

I tried to complain to ICO. First I had difficulty trying to find where I could report data abuses on their site, phoned them and lady tells me how to navigate to a page with a link - which in turn told me to send an email - DOH.

So I sent the email and got reply asking me to write by post - after a few more exchanges in emails - I just gave up. They just do not get the scale of the problem and as an organisation seem clueless on real life moving events.

http://www.phonepayplus.org.uk/ are meant to regulate the marketing companies which send texts but the sort of texts that get sent for insurance claims are not marketing but spammers wanting personal details (replying to them or making any form of contact is asking for more trouble). And there again Phonepayplus fails to do anything about those and points to Ofcom (who are equally inept at doing anything). Could it be too hard for a police department with a handful of people to trace numbers and bring people to court?

O2 provide a service to forward unsolicited texts to - I have not anything similar with other networks.

Hope you get somewhere with this.

crazyguy

Thanks Oneaday,

It just annoys me that these guys can get away with this, I was told that phonepayplus only deal with premium rate numbers and as for ofcomm well i copied them in on my email to the MD of O2,

I am unsure it is spammers as have looked into a lot of these marketing firms and lets say a company sends out a million sms messages they would pay between £0.02 and £0.04 per message sent as its a UK based number that is the average rate and there are so many of a simular message it must be costing a vast amount of money to send these out, i also know that it is a fishing expedition for the actual owner as lets say they send out 5 million messages they are probably hoping for a return of maybe 1 in 10.000 who may have actualy had an accident and then recoup any outlay made

simax

OneADay wrote: »

O2 provide a service to forward unsolicited texts to - I have not anything similar with other networks.

Orange and Vodafone do - I think you text the message (and the senders number) to 7726 (SPAM)

simax

crazyguy wrote: »

I am unsure it is spammers as have looked into a lot of these marketing firms and lets say a company sends out a million sms messages they would pay between £0.02 and £0.04 per message sent as its a UK based number that is the average rate and there are so many of a simular message it must be costing a vast amount of money to send these out, i also know that it is a fishing expedition for the actual owner as lets say they send out 5 million messages they are probably hoping for a return of maybe 1 in 10.000 who may have actualy had an accident and then recoup any outlay made

These clowns get a PAYG sim with unlimited texts, send a few hundred thousand, and then once they're rumbled and cut off, they activate a new PAYG sim with unlimited texts, and the cycle continues.... so it costs peanuts.

crazyguy

simax wrote: »

These clowns get a PAYG sim with unlimited texts, send a few hundred thousand, and then once they're rumbled and cut off, they activate a new PAYG sim with unlimited texts, and the cycle continues.... so it costs peanuts.

Having spoke with numerous Marketing firms this is not the case they do not just go in and buy a pay n go sim card and send these out its done via a Marketing Firm and yes it is very likely to be a pay n go sim card but the fact that the message is the same with different amounts of compo and only coming from approx 5-8 numbers does suggest its either one or two Companies touting for business.

simax

How do you know these people use marketing firms? A laptop connected to a PAYG phone with SMS software will suffice.

crazyguy

Well having spent best part of a year stopping nusance calls and sms messages that I get on a regular basis I have got to know a few key players in the marketing companys based in the UK and as its such a vast amount being sent out on a regular basis it seems very unlikely not just my view I may add that these are indeed individual scammers or company's doing this and the most likely senario is going to be a marketing firm, hence the amount of sms being sent with the same content and only a handfull of numbers being used.

If it were a pay n go sim in a company itself with the correct software in the amount of sms being sent out would be a lot smaller volume and would be worded in a different way, again this was told to me by a couple of marketing company owners.

grumbler

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/#vote

Is this a scam ?