Apps costing me extra on my mobile bill. HELP!!

ssharma

I am a Orange monthly contract user. Since November last year my mobile bills have been coming 15 pounds more than my contract of 35 pounds.

On checking the bill, i am being charged GBP 1.50 twice every week for some 'Application Content'. This is going on for the past 4 months. I have only ever downloaded free apps and the CS guy at Orange said that they could not do anything to help and stated that i must have unwittingly subscribed to something. I have deleted most of the downloaded apps but am still being charged and i dont want to keep on paying 12-15 pounds extra per month for something that i am not using.

Does anyone have any suggestions or remedies to this problem please?

A distressed phone user!

grumbler

Call Orange again and ask them what exactly they charge you for. If the 'guy' will try typically to fob you off again tell him that you are recording the call and ask him to put you through to the manager. If he refuses, ask him for his name and submit a complaint.

wantmemoney

ssharma wrote:

I have deleted most of the downloaded apps but am still being charged

unfortunately that does not help but hopefully won't matter.

'free' Apps appear to be the new play ground for these revenue sharing premium rate 'entrepreneurs'.

Do not delete any text messages they send you.

as Grumbler advises contact Orange and absolutely:

insist they identify the service they are debiting your account for
and
insist they give you the contact details of the company who they are billing for.

when you have this information you can put a complaint to the Regulator

if you complain enough somebody will be forced to produce the evidence that you did indeed request this 'service'.

thegoodman

grumbler wrote: »

Call Orange again and ask them what exactly they charge you for. If the 'guy' will try typically to fob you off again tell him that you are recording the call and ask him to put you through to the manager. If he refuses, ask him for his name and submit a complaint.

This would not work if you have unknowing subscribed to some kind of service. The orange will say you have subscribed to the service, nothing to do with us. The free apps are not the problem of orange, some phone makes do not protect the user from sending personal information out, so phone and os makes can make more money from the advertising.

What phone do you have? Make and model.

Some phones such as android are known for sending text out without your knowledge. Due to cheap phones and free apps users are targeted with advertising. Your personal info is sold on for xx amount.

Refer to the link below, some comments are interesting and helpful to read, avoid the comments by pro android users who will only see positive in everything to do with android.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3793239

grumbler

thegoodman wrote: »

This would not work if you have unknowing subscribed to some kind of service. The orange will say you have subscribed to the service, nothing to do with us. The free apps are not the problem of orange, some phone makes do not protect the user from sending personal information out, so phone and os makes can make more money from the advertising.

Rubbish - as usually.
All Orange have to do at this stage is to reveal all the details of these charges, i.e. what exactly 'service' it is and what company it comes from. As only Orange can charge their customers, they do have this information, but have no interest in stopping this 'service' as they are getting their lion share for collecting the money.

robbies_gal

here we go again android is crap bla blah blah

mrochester

grumbler wrote: »

Rubbish - as usually.
All Orange have to do at this stage is to reveal all the details of these charges, i.e. what exactly 'service' it is and what company it comes from. As only Orange can charge their customers, they do have this information, but have no interest in stopping this 'service' as they are getting their lion share for collecting the money.

I think what thegoodman is suggesting is that it could be a rogue app that the OP has installed that has started to send/receive premium rate messages as a means to steal money. However, without any further details about what other details appear on the bill, it's rather difficult to say what's going on. I would suggest from the wording 'Application Content' that this could be a service supplied by Orange themselves. I know that in the past Orange had a sneaky habit of automatically including a free trial of some of their products and services when taking out a contract with them that you either had to cancel or start paying for after the trial expired. It could possibly be something along these things?

HJFrancis

I know it might not be very palatable, but, as a last resort you could consider doing a factory reset on your phone.

This will basically take your phone back to how it was when you took it out of the box; make sure you've saved all your important stuff first!

Hopefully it won't come to that though - keep trying with Orange first!

MattHawkins

@thegoodman, this has nothing to do with Android phones. It's fairly clear you are an iPhone user and just taking the opportunity to knock Android. The phones are cheaper because they haven't got Apple price fixing the tariffs. I've only ever downloaded free apps and never come across a rogue one.

Back on topic ... insist Orange identify who is billing you. They can try to pretend it is nothing to do with them but it is their billing system that is taking your money so they are responsible. If they don't play ball report them to Ofcom.

Try their Twitter account as well. The Vodafone twitter people seem quite good at resolving problems the drones on the phone refuse to sort out.

thegoodman

MattHawkins wrote: »

@insist Orange identify who is billing you.

Try their Twitter account as well. The Vodafone twitter people seem quite good at resolving problems the drones on the phone refuse to sort out.

The orange should be able inform op who is billing. However if op have subscribed to something maybe without any knowledge than orang would say nothing to do with them, same as when you give direct debit to your credit card company.

Maynot happen to everyone but enough malware around to trick people into this. The android phones are known for this.

System

thegoodman wrote: »

The android phones are known for this.

Keep saying it enough times and you will slowly get a following