SMS Spam

bubbles_bonbon

Does anyone else have he problem I have just been dealingwith.

A company, for the past six months has been sending me spam sms messages asking if I would like to win a phone, or free ring tones and various other things.

I have always ignored these messages and deleated them from my phone.
This month my mobile bill was twice what it should have been. I asked o2 to give me a break down of the extra charges and it turns out that the company sendingthe spam sms charge me each time I receive one. Apparently if you do not send 'STOP' to the first text each one after this is charged!!!!!!

Is this legal???

O2 say it has nothing to do with them it's a third party charge. I have told O2 that I am not going to pay the extra charges and only pay for my contracted phone charges. If the third party want to chase me for the bill then bring it on!

There has to be a law against this. The first message has no terms and conditions, I have never replied to one of these messages and never asked for one to be sent to me.

I even begrudge sending a stop message that will cost me 10 pence.

Having spoken to a very helpful customer services lady at O2, I understand that this is very common, and she deals with hundreds of these charges every week. Even her own daughter got conned!!!!

Can anyone shed light on this subject?

NFH

If O2 alleges that the charges are correct and were incurred by you, then the onus is on O2 to prove this, because it is O2, and not the third party, who is invoicing you.

Margey

Hello,

It's called Reverse SMS Billing.

Have a look at this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_SMS_billing

and a pretty old article. But still relevant. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/3294595/Watchdog-to-clamp-down-on-text-messaging-scam.html

Sorry I can't help the situation, but there's some information for you.

Hope it helps

Sounds like your problem here.

dealer_wins

I would have thought that unless you have specifically authorised the chargeable texts, then they cannot charge you for them?

Intasun32

@Bubbles Bonbon,

If you have not subscribed to any mobile services, such as music downloads, wallpaper, etc, then I am sorry to tell you that you have joined the not so exclusive club of mobile phone users being scammed. I am also a fully paid up member.

It's a scam called 'Unsolicited Reverse Bill Texts/SMS' and your network will be more than knowledgeable of it. In fact so do OFCOM, Phone Pay Plus (The premium rate Regulator:rotfl:), all the networks, The Police, The Serious Fraud Office, the Press, my MP (and quite a few more), the Ministry of Justice, OFT, Information Commisioners Office aka The ICO, Consumer Direct, ASA and I may have left out a few that I have been in touch with when I was scammed when I was a Vodafone customer.

No one cares, why?

Your network will take up to 50% of the money STOLEN from your account as administration.

The Government will take 20% VAT

Finally the Scammer will take what is left.

This is a FACT.

Contact Phone Pay Plus (PP+) via it's web site or call them direct and make a complaint.

Use the PP+ web site to find the companies that are sending you these scam texts on the 'company finder' facility using the 'short code', the 5 digit number of the text. E-mail the company demanding a refund and removal of all your details from their records.

As this has been going on for so long I would advise that you request that your network change your number, for free of course. I know that this will cause you much inconvenience but from my own experience it is worth it.

Good luck.

:beer:

Search for Unsolicited Reverse Bill Texts/SMS on this forum, you will see that you are not alone.


QUOTE by NFH:

'If O2 alleges that the charges are correct and were incurred by you, then the onus is on O2 to prove this, because it is O2, and not the third party, who is invoicing you.'


If only it was that easy.

The network will swear that it was your fault. It is left to the customer to prove that they did not subscribe to the service. All the networks work in the same way, very rarely do they help.

NFH

Intasun32 wrote: »

E-mail the company demanding a refund and removal of all your details from their records.

As this has been going on for so long I would advise that you request that your network change your number, for free of course.

No, this is wrong advice.

Do not contact the third party that sent you these texts. Do not reply "stop" to the texts either. You have a contract with O2, and not with the third party. O2 have billed you and it is up to O2 to justify that the charge is correct and was incurred by you.

The networks like to wash their hands of this problem and put the onus incorrectly on the customer to contact the scamming third party. Don't accept anyone telling you that you need to contact the third party, as it is not your responsibility to do so. O2 have a relationship with the third party, because they pass on your money to the third party, perhaps by an intermediary party. It is up to each party in the chain to contact their supplier. Do not bypass the chain and contact the third party directly, as it could imply a contract between you and the third party.

NFH

Intasun32 wrote: »

The network will swear that it was your fault. It is left to the customer to prove that they did not subscribe to the service. All the networks work in the same way, very rarely do they help.

Yes, of course they will, because they don't want the admin costs of dealing with it. However, the onus is upon the network to prove that the charge is correct. If in the unlikely event that a customer had to go to court over it, a judge would expect the network to provide such evidence. The same principle applies out of court.

SnowTiger

Intasun32 wrote: »

If you have not subscribed to any mobile services, such as music downloads, wallpaper, etc, then I am sorry to tell you that you have joined the not so exclusive club of mobile phone users being scammed. I am also a fully paid up member.

It's a scam called 'Unsolicited Reverse Bill Texts/SMS' and your network will be more than knowledgeable of it. In fact so do OFCOM, Phone Pay Plus (The premium rate Regulator:rotfl:), all the networks, The Police, The Serious Fraud Office, the Press, my MP (and quite a few more), the Ministry of Justice, OFT, Information Commisioners Office aka The ICO, Consumer Direct, ASA and I may have left out a few that I have been in touch with when I was scammed when I was a Vodafone customer.

No one cares, why?

Your network will take up to 50% of the money STOLEN from your account as administration.

The Government will take 20% VAT

Finally the Scammer will take what is left.

This is a FACT.

I'm not sure about the how the bounty is split, however you are basically correct.

I had an ongoing disagreement with a mobile telco about two reverse charge premium rate SMS charges that were applied to my account, totalling £5. Not our problem was their response, despite the contract being between myself and them.

They told me that, perhaps, someone had erroneously entered my mobile number on a website. Apparently, according to them, there are websites out there on which you can enter a mobile phone number and the owner of the number will be bombarded with reverse charge premium rate SMS. This seems like a huge security hole and, of course, they were unable to come up with any examples.

They then sent me evidence that I had requested the reverse charge premium rate messages. Unfortunately their records showed that I had requested them several hours after they were received. They also sent me incorrect information about who had sent the messages.

Despite these obviously flaws in their logic they were adamant that the charges were correct and they wouldn't provide a refund.

Eventually, armed with the correct information about the sender, I went down the PhonePayPlus route and got a refund.

NFH

SnowTiger wrote: »

They then sent me evidence that I had requested the reverse charge premium rate messages. Unfortunately their records showed that I had requested them several hours after they were received. They also sent me incorrect information about who had sent the messages.

What was the nature of this "evidence"? Did you by any chance send a "stop" message back to the sender?

SnowTiger

NFH wrote: »

What was the nature of this "evidence"? Did you by any chance send a "stop" message back to the sender?

Following advice from the mobile telco I did send a text message containing STOP to the sender... and was charged for it!

The evidence the mobile telco produced was taken from their call records, which does raise concerns about its accuracy.

But, as Intasun32 mentioned, with so many interested parties with their finger in the pie who's going to rock the boat?

Interestingly, the sender of the reverse charge messages issued an immediate refund, plus a bit extra, without question.

NFH

SnowTiger wrote: »

Following advice from the mobile telco I did send a text message containing STOP to the sender... and was charged for it!

Yes, that's the reason I advised above against it. By communicating directly with the sender, it could imply a contract between you and the sender.

SnowTiger wrote: »

But, as Intasun32 mentioned, with so many interested parties with their finger in the pie who's going to rock the boat?

The only way to rock the boat is for consumers to always put the onus on the mobile networks to sort out every problem with these reverse texts, in the same way that consumers already do with disputed credit card transactions. This will create so much costly admin for the networks that they will take steps to curtail this fraudulent activity. The problem is that many consumers give in and follow the mobile networks' advice to contact the sender directly, which is not the correct procedure.