Unexplained number on phone bill

borc49

Hi there first post here and its a pretty negative post i'm afraid.

So the story is my younger brother has a htc wildfire S phone on contract on virgin mobile for £15 a month. This last month month my dad got a bill through for £192!! We've looked on his ebill and what has happened is he has been charged £0.15 for a text to a unknown number. This has happened around 1200 times so it soon adds up as you can see. We are obviously believing my brother that he hasn't text this number as its goes on in silly hours of the morning and quite frankly there's 4 or 5 texts each minute so the fact he could have been irresponsible is not in question.

My question is however has anyone else had this experience before and what did they do about it. And also do you think this is a scam or rouge application he could have installed off the android marketplace? I'm coming here first to see if i can get any info on it before we write a letter to virgin mobile as they were completely unhelpful and refused to believe something else has caused this when we rang. Also we are going to report this to the police as this is very suspicious.

Thanks Chris.

grumbler

borc49 wrote: »

...And also do you think this is a scam or rouge application he could have installed off the android marketplace?...

I wouldn't dismiss this possibility:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2058523/Smartphone-malware-warning-Rogue-apps-increase.html

Buzby

Unfortunally, app or no app - the calls remain the responsibility of the owner, leaving them to pay the bill and chase the matter up with OFCOM.

marleyboy

It sounds like a dodgy app. Am reminded of my days on dial up internet. A rogue app would constantly dial up and connect to a service charging me £1 for each dial. I had not noticed this until coming home from work one day to find my computer online.

The bill I got came in the size of a phone book and the bill was a four figure sum. BT acknowledge a discrepancy and did reduce the bill dramatically, but I still had to cough up a large bill for it. Unlike mobile apps, I could easily solve the issue by physically disconnecting my modem from the phone line..

toadyfrog

This also happened to my friend at work on T-Mobile, there were hundreds of texts to various number every couple of seconds. Luckily she argued with t mobile that is was not her sending the texts and they cancelled the bill, took a good few phone calls though.

borc49

Thanks for replies, much appreciated.

Virgin were rude and dismissive so they don't give a monkeys about this. As mentioned earlier by someone i will complain to OFCOM. And i'm weighing up whether to write a letter to google as after all this could be a rouge app let through by them, though my only doubts with that is my lack of proof that it was an app.

Cheers anyway, Chris.

Techhead_2

Aren't we all getting a little carried away? It seems to have been decided its a rogue app, based on nothing at all. We don't even know what the number is.

Before anyone can advise, we would need to know at least that. We can then look the number up on the regulators website and advise further.

spiro

borc49 wrote: »

And i'm weighing up whether to write a letter to google as after all this could be a rouge app let through by them, though my only doubts with that is my lack of proof that it was an app.

Unlike the Apple App store which vets ever app in the android market there is not the same checking so you can get any app.
Have you tried goodling the number these texts are being sent to?

Techhead_2

You just need up look them up on the regulators website. That will tell you who it is and how to get a refund.

For T-Mobile or Virgin, the number shown on the bill is likely to be a longer version of the shortcode. They will advise you of the actual number.

15 p a text is normally Info services like news headlines or chat services.

Will have to wait and see what the number is.

Gordon_Hose

Google the number that the texts have been sent to, might give you an idea of what it is. Chances are, someone else may have been affected and have a way to deal with it.

borc49

just to update you all. I have alerted the police who told us to report it to virgin mobile fraud department, something virgin didn't tell us to do when we rang them the first time.

The mobile number is 07715100658 we have text it off a pay as you go handset saying 'who are you' and they replied back saying 'who are you'. so no luck. tried ringing it also but no answer.