Unsolicited Text Messages

TobySaxon

Am I right in thinking that this case has been sorted out by PhonepayPlus now then? mBlox got a 6 month bar on 19th June? Did you ring O2 Mr Kennedy? I got this text yesterday at the same time, and am also on O2. I think the only text services I have ever used are Facebook, Twitter, AQA 63336 and 118118.

BaileyB

No have not rang 02 yet as was out in the sun all day yesterday :beer: but will do it this morning.

gosling72000

I had a problem like this recently with regards to about £10 being deducted from my account in a month from premium text rate messages that i had never signed up too or even heard of. Mainly dating and !!!!!! messages and one sporting ticket one, which me and my wife always laughed about whenever i recieved one, that was until i got the bill later that month!

Initially O2 said they couldn't do anything and i had to contact the company direct and discuss it with them and get the money back. Unsuprisingly you can never get through to anyone at that company, well of the three i had to contact anyway you had to leave a voicemail and quelle suprise no-one called back, but i was not deterred as i took it up directly with O2!

Initally that was a debaucle with O2 had to phone up three times to get the right telephone numbers for the companies that was sending out the text as the O2 (English speaking, NOT Indian) were giving me the wrong information to call them on each time!

Also there was a difference of opinion of how too stop the messages, as you always see printed on magazines etc and websites, stop and stop all is always written in capital letters e.g. (STOP or STOP ALL), which according to one operator was the correct way of writing it and stopping the texts. Then according to the other two operators it HAD to be written in lower case (stop or stop all) :huh: Which one is it? Well they consensus said it was lowercase so i tried that and of course they kept coming! :mad:

So i did a bit of investigating on the internet and found these two websites which were really helpful http://www.phonepayplus.org.uk/ using the number checker function (also they have a lot of detailed information on how to stop numbers and ways of gettting your money back) and until recently http://www.grumbletext.co.uk/page.php?pn=gtnostopreport forum to find information about these companies operating and how i could contact and stop them!

Now with this information i found above, i started to look at the numbers in detail and this was the bit where it got interesting. Those three companies all had different names and different 24 hour (answerphone) contact numbers for getting the messages stopped and supposedly a refund if proved you never requested the service. :huh:

However when you find the (office hours only) contact numbers to call, you was always given and put through to O2 customer services each time!!! O2 was running the sites and profitting that way :eek: (unofficially and unknowingly of course :rolleyes:). So much for not being able to help find the companies responsible, it was them all along!!! :mad:

Once i explained to the operator where i had got O2 customer service number from and that it was relating to nusiance premium rate text messages i was being wrongly charged for. The coversation suddenly became more serious, especially when i explained that i had not subscribed too or agreed too and O2 was being named, not any of these other random company names that i could not find on the internet too and i wanted good reasons and answers for this :rotfl: SERIOUS DAN!

She understood straight away but could not find the information on O2's system. So whilst on the phone i ran her through the interent and google to show her to the relevant pages and showed the information from www.phonepayplus.org.uk detailing O2 and the contact number i had used to reach her which was the customer service number.

After a small amount of deliberating and being put on hold to speak to her supevisor, she came back and said i would be refunded immedately including VAT and also would be refunded £15 for being messed about by the initial phone operators at the beginning and to prevent any hard feelings regarding these texts.

She also confirmed if anything was to happen like this again, i was to keep the message in my inbox and reply stop or stop all in lowercase with no other characters or quotation marks, as uppercase is not recognised by some computer systems and then to contact O2 again to resolve the problem!

She couldn't understand why O2 was associated with this stuff and i got a courteousy call the next day from her saying they were investigating the problem from within O2 and it will be stopped immediately!

From that day forth i have never had another preimum text rate message enter my inbox. Also follow all the good advice up above, never give out your mobile phone number unless you can guarantee that it will be used responsibly!

So there you have it, find the number from www.phonepayplus.org.uk and start tracking down who owns it, demand a refund and get O2 involved or whatever mobile phone company you are with. They usually need very little persuasion to help you, with the evidence you can find i.e. you don't have to threaten to leave them or take action against them, unless they are being very unhelpful and then i would do it, but not before trying to resolve it mutally first!

Hope it helps.

Regards

Dan G

gosling72000

How did it go Mr Kennedy with the phonecall to O2?

Did you get any closer to finding the truth and more importantly your money
back?

Regards

Dang

BaileyB

Phoned 02 they have confirmed no charges have been added to my account and gave me the direct number it came from. I dialed that but it kept on ringing so will try again later on.

Number was 0141 530 9575

Also i will sending a letter to the editor of my local paper as this is totally unacceptable that when running a comp to win a football season ticket that you then get dating messages. If i had a child and they got these messages (which is very likely as it is football related) i would be going straight to the very top.

Will let you know the outcome.

rbowall

I also have received these messages (4 in 3 days). Have just forwarded the spam message to 7726 with O2 (see http://service.o2.co.uk/IQ/SRVS/CGI-BIN/WEBCGI.EXE/,/?St=280,E=0000000001950887842,K=8468,Sxi=12,Case=obj(12848) for more information).

BaileyB

rbowall wrote: »

I also have received these messages (4 in 3 days). Have just forwarded the spam message to 7726 with O2 (see http://service.o2.co.uk/IQ/SRVS/CGI-BIN/WEBCGI.EXE/,/?St=280,E=0000000001950887842,K=8468,Sxi=12,Case=obj(12848) for more information).

Thanks, got another 1 yesterday only problem is i have an iPhone so cannot forward messages.

sharica

Hubby used to get loads last year and he did the STOP ALL thing and spent hours on the phone with mblox and payplus and other companys.. but today its started again from 80160 .. so here we go again..

Shaz...xxx

hotkee

I am very surprised and shocked that such a practice is allowed - doesnt Ofcom do nothing? Its one of those where people need to complain to MPs to start a campaign to put a stop these rip off merchants - GRRR

mutley74

Hi

I received a text message earlier on my Three mobile advertising me to text

"kathy" back to 81313 a "bored housewife" who charges £1.50 a text!

it says "SP VSMS.STOP2stop.01616603316"

Not sure what the SP VSMS, tried calling this 0161 number but no one picks up.

No idea where they got my mobile no. from but how do i complain against this type of marketing?:mad: