823 44

[webcrawler2050]

Simple issue. Got 6 messages at £2.50 a piece to my number, randomly. This company, have charged me £15.00 - I didn't subscribe etc.

I've spoken to them and they have assured me, they will refund me. Now O2 can't protect me, from this apparently.

Annoying it be..

However, is there some kind of addon or something I can get to protect myself from these 3rd Party texts.

[kinchyuk]

My knowledge may be a bit rusty as it's been a few years since I was involved in premium SMS, but..

The onus is on the service provider/sms aggregator to prove that you authorised them to send premium SMS messages to your phone. Usually they can see this by looking at their records for an inbound message from your handset requesting the service (and therefore agreeing to the charge).

If it's a subscription service, you should have received a free SMS confirming the subscription, and then another one once a month (or when you reached £20, whichever is the earlier) reminding you that you've subscribed to the service.

Now if you're 100% sure you never agreed to this, give the service provider a call back (I'm assuming this is who you spoke to?) asking for details of your request to use this service.

If they find a record of your request, and can provide a bit more detail, (which 95% of the time is what's required to jog peoples's memories) and you suddenly remember you did use the service, then all is good and lovely. If they can't, or you're really adamant you've never used said service and you're sure the dates and times of any messages requesting you join/use the service don't match the time when your mates/family/dog could have swiped your phone when you weren't looking (again, it happens!)
then the person running the service is a little trouble and you should contact PhonePayPlus (the UK's premium services regulator) and lodge a complaint.

http://www.phonepayplus.org.uk is a good place to start, if you tap in the number you'll find the contact details for the service provider - plus there's a link to register a complaint if you wish to do so.

Good luck, let me know how you get on..

[m419]

I think a complete ban on premium rate texts should be in place,

there should also be a recorded message played telling you the cost or some kind of warning on 070,07744 and 07755 numbers as they are not mobile numbers and are charged at a very high rate especially when calling from a mobile or public payphone!

I used to get many missed calls from 070 numbers,i've had one this year, but before they were persistent and they are rogue phone companies ringing mobiles once and then you ring back thinking its just common mobile number until you realise it's costing a fortune whilst you've been put on hold for a minute or two and then disconnected.

Also they have introduced standard mobile numbers allocated to all of the 5 mobile networks which begin 075, the confusion starts here:

070 numbers are so-called personal numbers/call forwarding numbers
075 numbers are allocated to the 5 mainland mobile networks
076 numbers are paging numbers,some are free to call like 0800 numbers, but 07624 is the code for Mobiles AND pagers for the Isle of Man but some premium texts services now also use this code! Confusing!
077 to 079 numbers are supposed to be mobile numbers but 07744 and 07755 are similar to 070 personal numbers/Call Forwarding Numbers and are NOT the same as calling UK Mobile phones.

How confusing is that!

Also why is the cost so high and why don't most phone companies not offer inclusive calls to the Channel Islands,Isle of Man and Republic of Ireland? They are not far away, I mean someone in Glasgow using a BT landline calling someone in London on a Virgin Media phone line is charged normal rates or part of inclusive calls, now someone calling from the same lines to 01481 Cable and Wireless Guernsey or 01534 Jersey Telecom lines, this is much higher! Its not like theres extra V.A.T to pay out.

And like why is that calling someone in Northern Ireland is not the same as Republic of Ireland,just because it has its own goverment does not have anything to do with price of phone calls, I mean someone calling from a landline in the UK to the Republic of Ireland is not going through much more technology nor lines and service providers than calling someone in Northern Ireland!

Its same with mobiles, Republic of Ireland has O2,Vodafone and 3, the UK does too, so why is it that only 3 are able to lower the cost of calling Ireland, its daft because Voip and internet phone services like Skype and also certain prepaid phonecards allow you to get away with it and therefore, the main standard providers are loosing out.

[kinchyuk]

Originally Posted by m419

there should also be a recorded message played telling you the cost or some kind of warning on 070,07744 and 07755 numbers as they are not mobile numbers and are charged at a very high rate especially when calling from a mobile or public payphone!

Not sure about 070, 07744 and 07755 but on 3 I get a prerecorded message when I call Jersey mobile numbers warning me that they're out of bundle.

According to my copy of the Ofcom 07 numbering allocation spreadsheet, 07744 and 07755 belong to Core Telecom. Cross-referencing that with the published BT Wholesale rates, I notice that the call termination charge is higher than the four main UK mobile operators but lower than 3.

Also why is the cost so high and why don't most phone companies not offer inclusive calls to the Channel Islands,Isle of Man and Republic of Ireland? They are not far away, I mean someone in Glasgow using a BT landline calling someone in London on a Virgin Media phone line is charged normal rates or part of inclusive calls, now someone calling from the same lines to 01481 Cable and Wireless Guernsey or 01534 Jersey Telecom lines, this is much higher! Its not like theres extra V.A.T to pay out.

Not sure about the Republic of Ireland as it's clearly an international call from the UK, with the distance argument you could say calls to France from London should be the same as a call from London to Glasgow as large parts of France are actually nearer. As for Guernsey/Jersey/Manx, I believe it's a historic thing that they're part of the UK numbering plan but not technically part of the UK. Still very confusing though.

Again, back to the BT Wholesale prices, Jersey Guernsey and Manx mobiles are higher cost than the big four mobile operators, but lower than 3. Can't see a price for geo termination to those destinations so I assume it's the same as UK geo termination - which, if the case, makes me wonder why it's out of bundle or at a higher cost..

[webcrawler2050]

Originally Posted by kinchyuk

My knowledge may be a bit rusty as it's been a few years since I was involved in premium SMS, but..

The onus is on the service provider/sms aggregator to prove that you authorised them to send premium SMS messages to your phone. Usually they can see this by looking at their records for an inbound message from your handset requesting the service (and therefore agreeing to the charge).

If it's a subscription service, you should have received a free SMS confirming the subscription, and then another one once a month (or when you reached £20, whichever is the earlier) reminding you that you've subscribed to the service.

Now if you're 100% sure you never agreed to this, give the service provider a call back (I'm assuming this is who you spoke to?) asking for details of your request to use this service.

If they find a record of your request, and can provide a bit more detail, (which 95% of the time is what's required to jog peoples's memories) and you suddenly remember you did use the service, then all is good and lovely. If they can't, or you're really adamant you've never used said service and you're sure the dates and times of any messages requesting you join/use the service don't match the time when your mates/family/dog could have swiped your phone when you weren't looking (again, it happens!)
then the person running the service is a little trouble and you should contact PhonePayPlus (the UK's premium services regulator) and lodge a complaint.

http://www.phonepayplus.org.uk is a good place to start, if you tap in the number you'll find the contact details for the service provider - plus there's a link to register a complaint if you wish to do so.

Good luck, let me know how you get on..

I've phoned, them and since, they assured me it would be stopped. They have also, issued me with a £22.50 refund. Nothing as of yet..

[Matth]

Got done by 88222 - reported them to phonepayplus
I didn't think fee charged texts could be taken on PAYG.

Would be a great feature if operators gave the option to disable these altogether, to stop these theiving gits!

[webcrawler2050]

Originally Posted by Matth

Got done by 88222 - reported them to phonepayplus
I didn't think fee charged texts could be taken on PAYG.

Would be a great feature if operators gave the option to disable these altogether, to stop these theiving gits!

I've contacted the owner of the short code number, who put pressure on them, after they sent me 2 more texts, resulting in a total of £27.50. They banned my number from their systems and got a chaps refund this morning!! Very swish indeed. This kinda "non consent" things must be against some regulation?

[m419]

Originally Posted by kinchyuk

Not sure about 070, 07744 and 07755 but on 3 I get a prerecorded message when I call Jersey mobile numbers warning me that they're out of bundle.

According to my copy of the Ofcom 07 numbering allocation spreadsheet, 07744 and 07755 belong to Core Telecom. Cross-referencing that with the published BT Wholesale rates, I notice that the call termination charge is higher than the four main UK mobile operators but lower than 3.



Not sure about the Republic of Ireland as it's clearly an international call from the UK, with the distance argument you could say calls to France from London should be the same as a call from London to Glasgow as large parts of France are actually nearer. As for Guernsey/Jersey/Manx, I believe it's a historic thing that they're part of the UK numbering plan but not technically part of the UK. Still very confusing though.

Again, back to the BT Wholesale prices, Jersey Guernsey and Manx mobiles are higher cost than the big four mobile operators, but lower than 3. Can't see a price for geo termination to those destinations so I assume it's the same as UK geo termination - which, if the case, makes me wonder why it's out of bundle or at a higher cost..

Why they class them as international is beyond me, the channel islands and isle of man is still regulated by Ofcom as well as the Digital Switchover,TV,Radio and Spectrum.

Now a few years back when I was with Virgin Mobile,I recieved a letter stating that they were making a few changes to call charges, one of those charges were calls to the Channel Islands and Isle of Man, apparently,Ofcom changed the policy of the cost of calling these places, they stated that they should not cost more than calling any other landline,so calling the channel islands and isle of man on pay as you go was the same as calling a number in mainland.

I've also noticed that calling the UK from another country is dirt cheap, I mean I used an OTE payphone in Greece and called a 3 UK mobile, it cost less than calling someone in the UK!

I think when you use international direct dialling, its a way of BT,Cable& Wireless,Verizon and Colt who route most international direct dialled calls from there own networks and from other smaller companies such as Virgin Media,TalkTalk and mobile networks to extort money from people as traditionally calls to international destinations where expensive, however as new technology an new policies have been introduced on termination rates, there isn't many reasons as to why calling say France or Ireland whether its a landline or mobile should cost 40p per minute! its outrageous.

It is to be believed that when you call a foreign mobile phone say 3 Italy or Orange France from the UK, termination rates do not apply, termination rates can only be claimed within the same country.

Another thing that annoys me is the reason why calling freephone numbers from mobile phones is not actually so free, its actually premium rate, T-Mobile UK charges 40p per minute for calling freephone numbers on Pay As You Go and many Pay Monthly price plans.

Previously non-BT payphone providers such as Infolines,Spectrum Interactive and Premier blocked access to freephone numbers because they did not get any revenue from it, all payphone providers are now able to claim revenue when users call freephone numbers, called the payphone access charge, this entitles the payphone provider 8.5p per minute of every call, this charge is extracted from the service provider who owns the freephone number and most likely charged to the business using the freephone number. This model should be introduced on mobile phones as well to ensure that freephone access is made available.