Vids4U Charge on Contract Phone 11 June 2014 at 9:07AM edited 11 June 2014 at 9:09AM in Consumer rights 7 replies 8.1K views

CBU2004

Okay so my partner was in the middle of texting, there seems to be a few malicious ads that have gotten onto her android - sometimes a random website will just open whilst doing another task - it's nothing more than an annoyance however.

Yesterday whilst texting a website named Vids4u opened up, she said it had adult content on, and a message popped up saying "You agree to pay £6 for this 30min video" or something along those lines, there was 2 ticks boxes which where filled in, she unticked them and tried to exit the screen, however it would not allow her to, then the website started to load again, then she was able to cross it off.

Shortly after she received a text saying she had been charged.
Googling the 02 number came up on the SMS Watchdog, apparently a lot of people have been charged for content/service they have never asked for or heard of.

I sent an email to vids4u, no reply as of yet, surely the network provider should reverse this charge, or not even allow it in the first place, it's totally fraudulent, there was no agreement what so ever.

CBU2004

UPDATE: Rang up 3 times, first two times they said they put a block on partners phone so it would not happen again.

3rd time the lady accepted it was just going round in circles and offered me the £6 as a gesture of good will - as much as I appreciate it, I would not call it good will for a fraudulent charge.

Now this is where I am stumped, the lady claimed the only way to access the videos was through a specific .mobi website.

However I was there when it just popped up during a text message and on smswatchdog, many people have said that it just happened also.

Anyone think another party could be using some malicious software to make these ads pop up and take a cut every charge?

DevCoder

Probably using flash sms methods to deliver these

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_Message_Service#Flash_SMS

forgotmyname

Clicked an advert in an app thinking it was the app itself?

Download Airpush detector or similar.

peanut1614

CBU2004 wrote: »

Yesterday whilst texting a website named Vids4u opened up, she said it had adult content on, and a message popped up saying "You agree to pay £6 for this 30min video" or something along those lines, there was 2 ticks boxes which where filled in, she unticked them and tried to exit the screen, however it would not allow her to, then the website started to load again, then she was able to cross it off.

This literally just happened to me and this is the top Google result. I was on the "Reddit is Fun" app and Chrome opened to "b.vids4u.mobi/b/i.php?show_offer=3&aid=&sid=" Only difference is I stopped the site from loading before anything was displayed on it and I haven't received a text message.

I work in IT security and am very careful about what applications I install, I haven't installed anything new in weeks either so it's odd it just started happening. Just hoping there's not been some drive-by attack otherwise I'll have to reflash the phone.

The ad wasn't a notification, it opened a website, so Airpush won't help and Avast/MalwareBytes both don't detect anything suspicious unfortunately.

paddy.paws

Had exactly the same from b.vids4U.mobi today £5 charge on my mobile for nothing scamming B*@tards. Phonepayplus need the company name before they will even contemplate helping, not that helpful at all really. Does anyone have the company name for this site? Has there been any repeat billing? I can not believe this payment stealing system is legal, its thieving, plain and simple.

Glass_Half_Empty??

Any updates on this? Happened to me tonight on my iphone5, got £12 charge for videos I didn't watch, didn't even see the site how can they charge my phone I haven't even given them a number go text me?

scottishyoda

I have managed to get a refund for this. Like everyone here, I was scammed by Vids4U for £30. I reported it to the police via Action Fraud. I then managed to find out that their customer services are dealt with by Switchfire ltd tel: 02077982800. I told them that I had reported the fraud to the police and was in the process of seeking legal advice. They agreed to refund the money as well as cancelling a subscription that had apparently been set up! But you can also cancel this subscription with your mobile service provider.