KKO Mobile charges ???

messimoney

wow, thanks for the info, we still have emails bouncing back and forth, they say I have to go to 3 and I will see I received a text, this is down to than to prove if it's them that have sent it right?
great help. thanks.

Kaizen917

Hi all,

I noticed about the existence of this thread so I thought I might share my KKO Mobile experience since I also somehow got subscribed for this "service" a few days ago.

I virtually saw the sms when it arrived and thought it was a some sort of scam to get me charged for sending the "STOP" sms to 61973. I contacted my operator(Vodafone) and they told me that I should send the sms but also phone their helpline to make sure its stopped. The latter confirmed it but still said that ill be charged 4.50 for this week and gave me the email of their support when I asked for a refund. Phoning back to Vodafone, they said that the charge may appear soon but they will block any possible further ones if necessary.

While 4.50 is a trivial amount, I still wanted to pursue it out of the principle about how shockingly easy this happened to me. Following a long correspondence with Vodafone, things narrowed down to how sorry they are about this and copy/pasting me a long lecture about how I should not send activation texts or phone up premium numbers. I could not resist telling them how out of context their responses were and that every penny I get charged like this will be something that I will consider coming from them when I soon make up my mind about the next contract(and Im far from being a low tariff customer). Still, after speaking to them today, the guy on the phone was nice enough to apply a 2.50 discount on my current bill which was definitely a good gesture. What's slightly more concerning is that he said how the service really was blocked from Vodafone's end from a few days ago but was still not blocked when he looked at another place in my account (whatever that means) so he said he blocked it there too but that I should still call again soon if I have any doubts(which I most probably will).

Simultaneously,I provided my story to BBC's watchdog and raised the issue with Phonepayplus. I was also running a correspondence with the KKO Mobile support and this is the last email that I received from them:

Dear Madam, Sir,




Thank you for your e-mail.

It is unfortunate you ignored the service and as a gesture of goodwill we will refund the full amount of 4.50£.
In order to process your refund we will need your full name and postal address.


Kind regards,
Edward



Customer Services
KKO Mobile

This is where I would appreciate any input from you guys. At one side,I seem to have a chance to reclaim my 4.50 (and thus be 2.50 "better off" with the Vodafone discount) but then the Vodafone helpline cannot assure me that its safe to provide my full and and address when, together with my number, that creates a potential for a misuse of my account. Do you reckon I should leave it as it is,simply making sure its stopped for good or should I also try to claim the 4.50 back?

At any rate, I agree with some of the people here about how unscrupulous this whole matter is. Authorities normally try to hammer us with various legislation and controls in different aspects of life, yet, this is vastly overlooked and open for abuse. On top of it, its not as if they actually provide a service that rational people would desire. I mean who wants phone ringtones when any mp3 can be turned into one nowadays? Take away their bogus subscriptions and their business model will be a total fail!

wantmemoney

messimoney wrote:

we still have emails bouncing back and forth, they say I have to go to 3 and I will see I received a text, this is down to than to prove if it's them that have sent it right?

[text removed by MSE Forum Team]

I would Insist on just dealing with your Network and PhonepayPlus. You have already tried sorting it out using their 'customer' contact number and ended up having additional money [text removed by MSE Forum Team] from you.

There are several variations of this [text removed by MSE Forum Team]and this or something similar to this is what I think is happening.

The [text removed by MSE Forum Team](or somebody) enter your numbers on to their web site.
They then send a text to that number(your phone) to inform you that you have signed up to their service. (this is what I believe they will try and use to try to con you into believing you have accepted the service)

Because the victims are not expecting any text they assume it is marketing spam and delete it.

I'm only guessing something like this is happening that is why it is so important for everybody to complain to PhonepayPlus.
(that is why I was so annoyed-too many made one post whinges and nothing else )

B]EDIT[/B sorry Kaizen917 didn't notice your post

cornish_gal

I found out a couple months ago that my son had these payforit charges on his contract phonebill (needless to say I was not best pleased). I found the website and sent the STOP message,at present it appears to of stopped the charges but will know for definate in the nxt few days when I get the nxt bill

thestudent

Hi everyone,

I have been charged nearly £50 by KKO Mobile but never signed up, accepted or requested any of their services, I wrote to them and told them that but they said that I did & came up with some random time & date. I am absolutely sure that I did not, I said to them that I would have never accepted to pay £4.50 a week especially for a service that I never used despite paying that amount since February but they said whether or not I used it, I signed up to it & they were not going to refund the money.

I contacted my mobile phone provider 'Three' but they have not been very useful nor have they provided any constructive help. I wrote to them & told them that I am cancelling and will refuse to pay the rest of my monthly contract (12 months left) unless they come up with a way of getting my money back & challenged them to legal action. I am blaming them for exposing me to this scam & think that they are part of it as all Android services that are chargeable has so far charged my bank or credit card rather than my phone bill (I never download games or music, the services which KKO mobile claims to offer).

I did not notice the charges because I use Three's e-billing & never really looked at the itemised bill. As I was away for 4 weeks & left my phone behind but still got a rather high bill, went to check my bill on line for the first time in months & noticed the KKO mobile charges.

I will advise other people in the same situation to refuse to pay their bills until Three owns up to this & refunds the money. I have been with them for 6 years but I think it is time for a change!

GuyPlowman

1. payforit is a third party company that is supported by the five major UK mobile networks. It is set up to allow the user to come to agreements with other third parties without those third parties having access to your bank account details. All contact details from their website go back through to the mobile service providers.
2. Whilst (1) is set up to protect our bank account details, it does allow dodgy companies to claim that they have an agreement with us when they don't. How do they do it? They send pop-ups through other applications as adverts. We click on an advert and this is the action that they have taken to agree to the contract. If you looked around on the site that you go through to, there are some terms and conditions. They then send you a text that looks like spam but informs you that they will be charging you. Through payforit, they inform your network provider that you have been using their services and your network provide pays them and then bills you.

So, in my opinion, the ultimate responsibility is with your the network provider - they send you the bill with their header on it. If they haven't done relevant checks on companies, then this is their problem. If they need to claim back money from a third party, then this is their problem. They will claim that it is nothing to do with them but they will also claim that the system was set up to protect us. If they failed with that, this is also their problem.

GuyPlowman

But first thing to do is call 08458341119 and cancel the service which is relatively straight forward.

GuyPlowman

Hi All

Just in case anybody stumbles on this string:

KKO is definitely the scam company here. However, your network provider is the one taking the money from your account. If you didn't agree for them to take it, they are in breach of contract and you can make all claims against them.

Contact the Trading Standards Institute and they will talk you through a template letter that you can use to do this and show that you know what you are talking about.

Hope this is helpful. Guy

pwaller

Hi all, I too recieved a txt message from this company today saying I had subscribed to kko mobile for £4.50 per week until I send stop to 61973. I initially thought this was a scam for me to txt stop and get charged a huge amount until I googled kko and found this forum, I then rang my network provider which is three and told them what had happened, I explained that I did not want to ring or txt this company in case I was charged a huge amount, the guy from three agreed with me and put me on hold and did it for me, he said that I am now unsubscribed, I will ring three back in a couple of days to make sure and I will also be ringing 0845 834 1119 (which is the number three gave me) during the week to make sure that this is cancelled and give them a piece of my mind, this number is only open mon-fri. Looking back on this forum this company have been scamming people for months we need to do something about it, if anyone has any ideas I will gladly join and do anything I can to stop these people!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MattEvs

Just echoing pwaller. My wife received a text from KKO Mobile last Thursday, from the tone of the text it looks like a spam. I told the wife to ignore it. With some time to kill the next day I googled it and found this blog.
So first of all, I have learnt a valuable lesson. Don't ignoring it, they may be a thieving, fraudulent, obnoxious company. But the rules in the industry don't do enough to protect consumers. In fact I use that term loosely, because it looks like a lot of people on here (myself included) did not choose to consume this rubbish.

I followed the advise on this tread. Lesson number 2, listen to other peoples experiences. I sent the STOP message to 61973. today I rang the kko mobile number and followed the cancellation instructions, because I had no confirmation of cancellation.
I then rang Three and explained it to them. Without too much discussion, the customer service agent offered to conference kko mobile in. At which point the guy from kko mobile read from a rehearsed script about how people subscribe, he gave me the time and date the service was subscribed to and basically told me that I must have done it. My browsing history tells me differently.
After a heated debate about whether they were frauds or not, he just gave me the support@kkomobile address and told me to complain to get my money back.

Then I carried on talking to 3 and I asked them to block the payforit service on my account, and they are going to refund the money to my account as I am such a good customer
Lesson number 3, complain.

My next step is to complain to OFCOM.