Unrecognised mobile subscription

bukko

Hi,

We have EE 4G broadband at home, as the only other option (BT) is next to useless. We have an EE SIM in a HUAWEi router.

Unusually I checked my online bill yesterday (yes I know I should check more often) and saw some strange items listed under the 4G account, 5 items at £4.50 a time.

I phoned EE to check what these were, and apparently I subscribed to a game service on December 29th and have been paying £4.50 a week for it since.

This is news to me but EE gave me their contact details so I googled their email address which took me here. Note that it says "The only way to get a subscribed to one of our services is by sending a text message from the subscribed mobile phone (the phone number that receives our service). If you didn’t send an opt-in message perhaps somebody else used your telephone to subscribe to the service. We are not allowed to send any messages to a mobile phone number if they haven’t subscribed to our service"

Given that this number is only used for broadband, how is it possible that an SMS was sent from the number to subscribe to their services? Well, it would require that someone remove the SIM from the router and put it into their phone, which didn't happen. I know I didn't, my missus says she didn't (she wouldn't know how anyway), and our son was out of the country from Christmas to after New Year.

Has anyone else had a similar experience? If so how did you deal with it?

I'll ring these people tomorrow (hours are 9-6 so can't tonight) and if that fails - on EE's advice - I'll contact the Phone Paid Services Authority. Not feeling confident in a result though. How am I supposed to prove I didn't subscribe?

Chino

bukko wrote: »

How am I supposed to prove I didn't subscribe?

How about by opening the Messaging app on your mobile and reviewing the text messages you sent on 29 December?
If you didn't send any messages to the game service then you couldn't have subscribed to it.

Lorian

Chino wrote: »

How about by opening the Messaging app on your mobile and reviewing the text messages you sent on 29 December?
If you didn't send any messages to the game service then you couldn't have subscribed to it.

The SIM is not in their mobile phone, it's in their router.

bukko

Lorian wrote: »

The SIM is not in their mobile phone, it's in their router.

My point exactly.

bukko

UPDATE:

They have agreed that the charges were not valid and have refunded in full via Paypal.
I would still like to know how it happened in the first place though.