#nuisancecalls

Record fine for company behind ‘staggering’ 46 million nuisance calls

Firm fined for “frightening” late night sales calls

I was speaking to a Phone Pay Plus advisor today who told me the fact that a premium-rate text charge appears on my bill is evidence that the service was subscribed to. This leads me to believe that the mobile phone user is still far away from winning the battle against unscrupulous premium-rate SMS vendors who can send premium text indiscriminately to your mobile and charge you for it. Phone Pay Plus is not fighting enough for us the users, and there is still a lot that needs to be done.

I had some good news today regarding the £80 premium text charge on my eleven year old son's phone bill. The company Mobile Interactive Group agreed to refund all the premium-rate SMS charges on the account, so it has been a battle worth fighting for. I am not saying that if you complain to the company that you will get a refund, but it has to be worth a try.

I found another forum on the web called www.nuisancecalls.org.uk that members have been registering their gripes about premium rate texts. A member by the name of Jon carefully articulated how to complain to your phone company when you find out that you have been charged for a service that you did not subscribe to. So here is what Jon had to say plus a template letter of complaint.

If you get any unwanted premium rate texts, you should send an email or registered letter to the customer service department of your mobile network with the following text (replace O2 with your network's name): " I have received a number of unsolicited premium rate texts from 82344 (replace relevant number here). I do not have an agreement, contract or relationship of any kind or form with this scam company, hence all texts sent to me were sent illegally as per 2003 E-Privacy Regulations. The money taken from my account was also taken illegally as per the 1968 Theft Act. Since my contract is with O2 and it is O2 that has knowingly or unknowingly been complicit in this theft I expect one the following from O2:

I expect O2 to refund the money illegally taken from my account and O2 to take this up with the scammers.

I expect O2 to provide me with a full and detailed audit trail proving that I subscribed for this service and that the money was taken legally.

Please advise me within 48 hours of receipt of this email, which of the two above actions O2 will be taking. If I do not receive a satisfactory reply within 48 hours I will be making a formal complaint to Oftel, reporting the theft to the Police and initiating legal action". It’s almost a certainty the network will not have any proof of a subscription, they may have details of texts sent or received, but unless they can provide the content of those texts then they can't prove that you subscribed. They will have to refund the money or get the scammers to refund the money (make sure you get a FULL refund). I did all of the above with O2 and they finally stopped giving me the run-around and got me a refund. Don't let them fool you into thinking you signed up by accident, or you weren't paying attention, this is nothing but a SCAM. The scammers buy your number from mailing lists or simply auto generate it from known number ranges.