Free Stuff fleeced money out of my mobile

sanegirl

Hi,
just thought I'd let you know about my experience earlier today.

While looking for the ultra lift callenge website I found a Free Stuff website. It was great fun, I registered for some free dove samples.

Some of the freebies required you to register with the F.S. website, which I did. I had my eye on some Maybelline stuff.

However, once on the Maybelline website, had to register here too, I was required to give my mobile number. No mobile number, no free stuff.

Well some of you might have guessed whats coming next !!!

As soon as I confirmed my mobile number and hit enter there was a load of "free" txt messages from GOGOGY and I now have £0.03 left in my mobile. It only took 10 seconds, thank goodness I don't have a contract mobile.

10 seconds to fleese the credit out of my mobile but it will take at least 24hrs to unsubscribe from this junk that I wasn't aware of subscribing to in the first place !

Anyone else had a similar experience?

Would this have been the genuine Maybelline website?

If it is, I'm sorry but the "Great Lash" will be in a land fill very shortly and they've lost a customer for good.

Is there any way of stopping this sort of practice?

Bit miffed actually

karlie88

sanegirl wrote: »

Hi,
just thought I'd let you know about my experience earlier today.

While looking for the ultra lift callenge website I found a Free Stuff website. It was great fun, I registered for some free dove samples.

Some of the freebies required you to register with the F.S. website, which I did. I had my eye on some Maybelline stuff.

However, once on the Maybelline website, had to register here too, I was required to give my mobile number. No mobile number, no free stuff.

Well some of you might have guessed whats coming next !!!

As soon as I confirmed my mobile number and hit enter there was a load of "free" txt messages from GOGOGY and I now have £0.03 left in my mobile. It only took 10 seconds, thank goodness I don't have a contract mobile.

10 seconds to fleese the credit out of my mobile but it will take at least 24hrs to unsubscribe from this junk that I wasn't aware of subscribing to in the first place !

Anyone else had a similar experience?

Would this have been the genuine Maybelline website?

If it is, I'm sorry but the "Great Lash" will be in a land fill very shortly and they've lost a customer for good.

Is there any way of stopping this sort of practice?

Bit miffed actually

so you entered your mobile number online, received some text messages and had money taken from your credit?

i would have thought that you had to confirm/click on a link within the text message to get money taken from you??

this thread maybe useful to you:

http://www.mbclub.co.uk/forums/pc-i-t-support-advice-posts/95683-anybody-got-scammed-gogogy.html

karlie88

further to my post above...this may also be helpful:

http://gogogy.com/uk/faq.html

celebrate

I agree thanks for posting
Will think twice before signing up for these things
Often give my number when I enter comp as led to believe they might need to contact you but I have received so much crappy emails through I have stopped

Choco1208

Thank you for informing us!

Oh no, I'm always giving my mobile number when registering with any company online.

BAILEYS6904

Google 'Phone Pay Plus'. They are the regulaters around this sort of thing, and if the company has broken the guidelines, they have the power to fine u to 250k. At the very least, they can advise how to get your money back.

hth

caramacgirl

Thankyou OP, I will watch for scams like this thanks to you. Hope you didn't lose too much credit.

LadyDee

If I'm considering making a large purchase from a previously unknown company then I'll check out the 'Vent' Board - I don't browse there - this is the first board I check each day, so thank you op. I'm another who wouldn't have known about this if you hadn't posted here. Well done, and I hope you haven't lost too much. One question though - don't you have to 'reply' to these unsolicited texts to be charged?

BAILEYS6904

Lady Dee

Just to let you know, its usually the messages that are sent to the mobile that are the chargeable ones. So, for examle. if you wanted to enter the x factor voting, you send the message (thats charged at normal network rate), and then receive one back (usually saying thank you), and thats the one thats charged.

OP, if you can, reply STOP ALL to the messages sent, and call Phonepayplus, who will investigate.

HTH x

blue_monkey_2

I have to say, I don't really use the vent board so I too am glad I saw this here. With so many offers around for 'free' stuff it is good to know things like this can happen. I didn't even know that the text was charged when you got a reply, not when you sent the text either. Learn something new every day. I've always been worried about replying STOP ALL because I might get charged a lot for replying and I am on contract.

paddyrg

LadyDee wrote: »

don't you have to 'reply' to these unsolicited texts to be charged?

They're known as 'reverse billed', it's been the favourite billing model of premium SMS since the services first appeared - I looked into it in the 90's as a revenue stream, and the preferred model then was reverse-billling, and it has only got worse with 'subscriptions' etc, which heavily abuse reverse billing.