Warning - Marks and Spencer £300 Prize Scam Looks Legit!!!

lowbrim

Beware if you get an email that looks like it comes from Marks & Spencer looking like a free competition asking if you know where M&S was started. I consider myself pretty savvy but this one caught me!! It asks you a question online and then asks to validate entry by putting your mobile number in and then sending you a text with a validation code. It then sends you 3 questions to answer. From this moment on you are signed up to £4.50/week to enter weekly competitions!!! This is in the small print that I spotted before answering the questions but I suspect that the mistake is still going to cost me £4.50!!
The company name is THISILIKE and "it seems" very easy to cancel if you realise your mistake for future charges but I suspect that they are happy if they catch you for the first £4.50. They charge the £4.50 through your mobile operator so if you are billed monthly you are unlikely to spot until your bill comes in.

hollydays

The site looks very scammy too

http://thisilike.net/UK

If it looks like it came from marks and Spencer's, presumably that's illegal?

Castle

hollydays wrote: »

The site looks very scammy too

http://thisilike.net/UK

If it looks like it came from marks and Spencer's, presumably that's illegal?

The "Stop" code was only set up last week (12th January 2016):-
http://www.phonepayplus.org.uk/about-us/number-checker/check-a-number-results.
If they claiming to be M & S then it's illegal and just sending you the text is very likely to be a breach of the PECR2003; but since the company is based in Germany there's not much chance of stopping them.

lowbrim

Thanks for the phonepayplus link I have called them to try and get the company stopped but all they can do is get my phone taken off the companies register. This, it seems, is a new type of scam. They also send emails which indicate they are from Tesco Giftcard and a number of other companies. I am trying to contact Marks & Spencer to get them on the case. I have also contacted Vodaphone and got all premium rate numbers blocked on my phone and full marks to Vodaphone they have refunded the £4.50 the company tried to charge me.

The email was headed "Regarding your M&S Giftcard" and given I had just had one the previous day it was even more convincing!!