Buongiorno - unapproved charges

JuicyM

Thanks for the template. I have only just realised I have been charged for the last year. (I know it is ridiculous but I rarely check my bill because I didn't think I had subscribed to anything. Only checked it because my contract is up for renewal at the end of the month).

Fingers crossed they give me a refund. Thank you so very much MSE community, you have saved my bacon so many times :-)

JuicyM

Just to let you know, I did not receive an email response so I phoned them up and was told the service was cancelled and that they would also block the number to ensure i wasn't contacted again.

I sent a chaser email saying that I believe they were operating outside of the law, and still had no response so put it down as a mistake on my part. Then with no email from them I got a notification from PayPal today to say that my account have been credited with £48 - the whole amount i paid them. So happy. Thanks for your help :-) :j

danielrjt

Checked my t-mobile account today, £1.25 every week since 15/10/14 has been charged! Email has been sent, just had an automated email so far. Fingers crossed!

dazane

I helped my friend with this as she had charges showing on her bills. She used the template as provided on here and received a response really quickly. They told her she had subscribed October 2014 and would sort a refund via paypal. Her bills show it as far back as March 2014. She sent a reply stating this and has not heard anything back. She has even re-sent it a couple of times asking for a response and nothing!! She hasn't even heard off paypal with regards to the refund they were going to sort, so they can't have done this. Don't know where to go now Can anyone help with this? thanks in advance

bertjones

Have also fallen victim to this scam - contacted them and they offered me a months refund - they owe me 20 weeks of £1.250. They've now sent me an email promising a full refund of £6. I think they've probably forgotten to alter their standard template that used to say full refund and now says 1 month! Fingers crossed!

JoHat71

Thank you! This seems to be the only place where I can get accurate information on how to deal with these scammers and I will apologise in advance for this long post! I only noticed that I was being scammed when I decided to upgrade my mobile to the same contract as my sons. I couldn't figure out why I was being charged approx £5 extra per month. I was gobsmacked when I discovered Bionogiorno had been robbing my money. The power of Google brought me here and I have spoken to EE. They say they can't block 3rd parties and advised me to contact and complain to phonepayplus. I complained to them and they sent the following letter:-

"Thank you for contacting PhonepayPlus and for bringing this matter to our attention.

PhonepayPlus will now contact the provider on your behalf to request specific information on the service and how you came to be opted in to it.

If you are still receiving text messages and wish to stop them, simply create a new message and text STOP ALL to the relevant shortcode. This will immediately unsubscribe you from the service but pending charges will continue to be added to your monthly bill or, if you are a Pay As You Go customer, queued and deducted from your available credit the next time you top up.

PhonepayPlus will contact you again shortly to update you on your case.

If you have any further questions or information about your complaint, please contact our helpline on 0800 500 212 between 9.30am and 5pm Monday to Friday. Please ensure you have your case reference number to hand before calling."

I also used the template (kindly provided by Shelly6666), sent Bionogiorno an email and after 5 days I received the following reply:-

"Thank you for your email.

Your request has been processed and you have been successfully removed from MuchGossip as of 10/04/2015

MuchGossip promises the hottest celebrity gossip, a latest news calendar and rankings for the best stories, as ranked by you and fellow gossip fiends! Use this brilliant new web app on your iPhone or Android smartphone, and share the scandal on Facebook, Google + and twitter.

Our logs show that *********** responded to one of our mobile internet promotions for MuchGossip using a IPHONE on 04/01/2014

A response to one of our mobile internet campaigns re-directs to our joining page. This page contains key information about MuchGossip including; the weekly costs, our contact details and how to leave the service.

Once a customer agrees to join MuchGossip they are sent a Welcome text message confirming that they have joined, the web address to access the service, weekly costs, our contact details and the option to cancel the service, e.g. send stop.

Our records show that *********** joined on a 24 hourfree trial and that the message instructed you that at the end of this free trial period you would be billed weekly until you cancelled the service.

In addition to the Welcome message, Reminder messages are also sent to our customers on a monthly basis, keeping them informed about their subscription. The Reminder message includes; the web address to access the service, weekly costs, our contact details and the option to cancel the service e.g. reply ‘stop’. Our records show that the last Reminder message sent to ********** was sent on 30/03/2015

B! WebApp Support prides itself on its commitment to customer satisfaction. Therefore we can offer you two options to address your query.

The first option, as a gesture of goodwill we can refund the charges made before you received your first reminder message,amounting to £3.96

Please note that your acceptance of this refund will close this query and no further refunds will be issued.

The second option is we can escalate and open an investigation.

Depending on the outcome of the investigation a decision will then be made as to how much of the subscription will be refunded. Please allow up to 30 working days for us to carry out the investigation.

Kindly reply to this email confirming how you would like us to proceed.

If you choose the first option, please note that refunds are processed through PayPal. You don’t need an existing PayPal account. An email will be sent from PayPal to ********@*******.co.uk within 7 working days containing instructions on how to claim your refund of £3.96

We have also taken the liberty of adding your number to our block list to prevent further charges or interaction with our service. You can reply to this email if you would like to be removed from our block list."


I am fuming!! I sent the following email and am now waiting for a response within 30 days:-

"I confirm that I received your reply. I would like to know which mobile internet campaign re-directed me to your site. If I inadvertently clicked on a link to your website, it did not mean that I wanted to subscribe to your service. I did not agree to join MuchGossip, in fact I was duped/tricked into subscribing to a service I did not want (or actively request).



I would like to escalate my complaint and open an investigation. As previously requested, I would like an immediate and full refund of all charges applied to date.

I look forward to hearing from you."

Phew! I will keep you updated...

The_Sleeper

Guess what - I've joined the scammed club too!

I left EE in no doubt what I thought of their EE Store that has been merrily charging me 1.25 since September, and their bills that do not tell me what the charge is for meaning I had to make a 30 minute call to them today to find out. I don't remember even logging into EE Store.

Let's see what B! WebApp Support do about it tomorrow.

Rob_Mogs

JoHat71 wrote: »

Thank you! This seems to be the only place where I can get accurate information on how to deal with these scammers and I will apologise in advance for this long post! I only noticed that I was being scammed when I decided to upgrade my mobile to the same contract as my sons. I couldn't figure out why I was being charged approx £5 extra per month. I was gobsmacked when I discovered Bionogiorno had been robbing my money. The power of Google brought me here and I have spoken to EE. They say they can't block 3rd parties and advised me to contact and complain to phonepayplus. I complained to them and they sent the following letter:-

"Thank you for contacting PhonepayPlus and for bringing this matter to our attention.

PhonepayPlus will now contact the provider on your behalf to request specific information on the service and how you came to be opted in to it.

If you are still receiving text messages and wish to stop them, simply create a new message and text STOP ALL to the relevant shortcode. This will immediately unsubscribe you from the service but pending charges will continue to be added to your monthly bill or, if you are a Pay As You Go customer, queued and deducted from your available credit the next time you top up.

PhonepayPlus will contact you again shortly to update you on your case.

If you have any further questions or information about your complaint, please contact our helpline on 0800 500 212 between 9.30am and 5pm Monday to Friday. Please ensure you have your case reference number to hand before calling."

I also used the template (kindly provided by Shelly6666), sent Bionogiorno an email and after 5 days I received the following reply:-

"Thank you for your email.

Your request has been processed and you have been successfully removed from MuchGossip as of 10/04/2015

MuchGossip promises the hottest celebrity gossip, a latest news calendar and rankings for the best stories, as ranked by you and fellow gossip fiends! Use this brilliant new web app on your iPhone or Android smartphone, and share the scandal on Facebook, Google + and twitter.

Our logs show that *********** responded to one of our mobile internet promotions for MuchGossip using a IPHONE on 04/01/2014

A response to one of our mobile internet campaigns re-directs to our joining page. This page contains key information about MuchGossip including; the weekly costs, our contact details and how to leave the service.

Once a customer agrees to join MuchGossip they are sent a Welcome text message confirming that they have joined, the web address to access the service, weekly costs, our contact details and the option to cancel the service, e.g. send stop.

Our records show that *********** joined on a 24 hourfree trial and that the message instructed you that at the end of this free trial period you would be billed weekly until you cancelled the service.

In addition to the Welcome message, Reminder messages are also sent to our customers on a monthly basis, keeping them informed about their subscription. The Reminder message includes; the web address to access the service, weekly costs, our contact details and the option to cancel the service e.g. reply ‘stop’. Our records show that the last Reminder message sent to ********** was sent on 30/03/2015

B! WebApp Support prides itself on its commitment to customer satisfaction. Therefore we can offer you two options to address your query.

The first option, as a gesture of goodwill we can refund the charges made before you received your first reminder message,amounting to £3.96

Please note that your acceptance of this refund will close this query and no further refunds will be issued.

The second option is we can escalate and open an investigation.

Depending on the outcome of the investigation a decision will then be made as to how much of the subscription will be refunded. Please allow up to 30 working days for us to carry out the investigation.

Kindly reply to this email confirming how you would like us to proceed.

If you choose the first option, please note that refunds are processed through PayPal. You don’t need an existing PayPal account. An email will be sent from PayPal to ********@*******.co.uk within 7 working days containing instructions on how to claim your refund of £3.96

We have also taken the liberty of adding your number to our block list to prevent further charges or interaction with our service. You can reply to this email if you would like to be removed from our block list."


I am fuming!! I sent the following email and am now waiting for a response within 30 days:-

"I confirm that I received your reply. I would like to know which mobile internet campaign re-directed me to your site. If I inadvertently clicked on a link to your website, it did not mean that I wanted to subscribe to your service. I did not agree to join MuchGossip, in fact I was duped/tricked into subscribing to a service I did not want (or actively request).



I would like to escalate my complaint and open an investigation. As previously requested, I would like an immediate and full refund of all charges applied to date.

I look forward to hearing from you."

Phew! I will keep you updated...

Hi,
Did you ever receive a response from your last reply?

I only ask as we've had the same response after having been charged since September 2013!!

Factual31

Thank you all for your contributions so far, and to Martin for setting up this web site and giving us a voice.

I've come to a different conclusion:

- EE are abdicating every responsibility for this scam, on grounds it is a "third-party" app
- EE's terms and conditions (actual clause may vary depending on version; it's 4.12 in mine) support what EE customer services are arguing
- however, purely because they have a clause in their T&C doesn't mean the clause is fair and, therefore, valid; the UK has a specific piece of legislation (the Unfair Contracts Terms Act 1974) which renders void clauses which would be deemed unfair;
- I believe that clause to be unfair, on grounds EE are billing us for charges without any evidence the customer actually purchased the service: the onus should be on them to show we subscribed to the service, otherwise any Tom, !!!!!! or Harry could claim we signed up to their weekly rubbish service.

The scam, which at the time was passed up as a 'bug', has been perpetrated by Buongiorno UK Ltd, a sub of Buongiorno SpA which in turn is owned by NTT Docomo, Inc (a Japanese sub of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation, listed on Tokyo, NY and London stock exchanges) since 2012, as reported by BBC News (ref. Technology 19210215 - sorry, site doesn't allow me to post links)

I think it is outrageous that EE should be complicit in this scam, as they're clearly making commission on the charges (another reason why they can't claim it's nothing to do with them). Further, it's unreasonable to expect customers to have to spend time to seek refunds.

I'm taking this to OFCOM from a trading standards perspective - holding a telecoms licence in this country is a privilege not to be abused by unethical companies such as EE.

Rob_Mogs

Just as an update to this,
We received a refund from TMobile for the charges applied and had a fight with them over it as they refunded it but decided not to refund the VAT that they had added to the charges! so eventually got that back and closed our account.

Also got a years worth of charges back from buongiorno, we only got a years worth from either as thats how far back our bills went.

But I would imagine that we got our full amount back by geting a years worth out of both.