Sudden mobile bill increase

stimpy27

Just a quick heads up. I enter many competitions on here and try to avoid anything that looks too spamy, However recently I noticed that my mobile phone bill had increased by about half. On ringing my network provider they told me I had been receiving texts and the company had charged me for subscribing. The texts I had been receiving were something like girlyvidz, I have always ignored and deleted them assuming it was a spam and too scared to text stop in case it took me to a dodgy link!

Maybe I am naive but I had no idea that a company could send you messages and then charge you. Just to be aware. The company they are sent from are allegedly refunding me the money and said that it happens quite often so please be aware!!

weeowens

I rarely enter text comps but when I do I never use my normal contract mobile. Instead I use my comping PAYG mobile that has just a small balance on it. That way if anything happens like you describe I cannot lose much.

Blueyez

I avoid adding my mobile where it's not mandatory. The spam has always been awful on our T mobile/ EE phones- part of the reason I'm not renewing it in the summer.

DynasticDux

Just get a sim card from Three on their 3-2-1 tariff
It is active as soon as you put it in your phone - I have had mine now for over 2 years and have never ever put any credit on it, the balance is still £0.00 and works fine for incoming calls & texts (even when I am in Spain it is totally free to receive calls .... they have many other countries too where it is totally free to receive incoming calls unlike many other mobile phone operators)

camsmom

This happened to me - couldn't understand what was going on.

Apparently, I had been charged £3 every time this company messaged me :mad: I had just done the same as you, ignored and deleted as thought it was spam. No detail on the text to show it was anything more sinister.

Depending on which network you are on (I'm on Vodafone) you can bar premium rate texts being sent from your phone and TO your phone which is how they catch you out. I never enter text comps which are usually premium rate so doesn't effect me. Haven't had a problem since.

Also happened to a friend who doesn't enter comps and hardly uses her mobile, who knows where they got her number,so worth being aware of.

hazyjo

Hadn't given much thought to this, but will now go check if Tesco offer a 'bar premium numbers' thingy. Thanks for the heads-up!

Jx

hazyjo

I have some received text charges - but they are how they take the money for those text comps I enter (not that many). I do the Wave one on a Fri when I remember - they don't charge the £1 or £1.50 or whatever from your bank or when you text them, they charge it when they text you. Semantics I suppose - so long as they're not charging me twice, that's fine

All else seems okay.

Thanks!

Jx