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| Unsolicited Text Messages |
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| message from george on 24 Jun 2005 |
Hi All
Today, I started receiving unsolicited texts. At first, I thought nothing of
them, but then noticed charges on my account. I don't know who the messages
are from and there is no number, it just says New Message. I contacted my
network who are useless, advised that they cannot do anything until phone
bill comes and we get the number of the bill. I have certainly not
subscribed to anything and according to my network, they are not liable for
any charges. Further more, the network is at the moment unable to give me
clear break down of these charges. Is this legal?
George
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| Chris P Bacon replied to george on 24 Jun 2005 |
probably so.
i had loads of truobe getting money back from O2 due to premium rate
texts being sent to my phone. have you tried replying with the message
STOP
Chris P Bacon
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| Gareth replied to Chris P Bacon on 24 Jun 2005 |
Okay, let's be clear about this: has this problem been experienced by anyone
who can be sure that they have had complete and unique possession of their
phone during the period in question (i.e that little "Timmy" or some other
twat has not sent a "START" message to some wanky premium rate service)?
As far as I know - and both T-Mobile, Easymoble and Virgin have explained
this issue in brief detail - it is technically impossible for a premium rate
message send to charge your account unless you have sent the opt in message
(inadvertently or otherwise).
Gareth.
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| Volff replied to Gareth on 29 Jun 2005 |
This is, of course, total crap from the service operators. The
premium rate scam operators can send their messages to any mobile
number. I had one such case recently, but I was able to get the £1.50
back from Opera Telecom.
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| george replied to Gareth on 24 Jun 2005 |
Thanks for your message, Gareth
I am 100% certain that noone had my phone since I've had it an I deffo have
not subscribed to anything.
George
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| Andy replied to george on 25 Jun 2005 |
Then maybe it was noone who subscribed.
It's "no one" not "noone"!
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| Gareth replied to george on 24 Jun 2005 |
A number of people have said the same thing - as Google shows - and nobody
knows what to suggest in terms of practical recourse.
Favouring the cock up instead of conspiracy approach I believe (hope) that
there must be a reasonable explanation but a number of sensible and well
informed people have nonetheless come a cropper.
But, for example, T-Mobile and the various T-Mobile virtual ops are clear
that the scenario you describe is impossible - I assume because the premium
charging text message has to authenticate itself on the basis of a pretty
good private opt in.
Gareth.
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| Jet Morgan replied to Gareth on 24 Jun 2005 |
This is the same "technically impossible" to have your phone located
without your consent, is it ? Trusting that the "3rd party" will
do the right thing re obtaining authorisation.
Richard [in PE12]
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| do not spam me replied to george on 24 Jun 2005 |
The rules are quire explicit ...
... under the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive)
Regulations 2004 it is unlawful to send an unsolicited sales and marketing
text message. Telemarketing companies who send SMS messages need your prior
permission...
complain to the appropriate authorities !
hth
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| jas0n replied to do not spam me on 25 Jun 2005 |
This is becoming a major issue - O2 who we deal with will not barr
premium text services completely by request.
I have asked numerous times for this barr - our users who maintain they
are innocent have been charged various amounts from various premium rate
services .... most of them have stopped after sending a STOP message but
some dont.
At the end of the day if you do not want premium services then you
should be able to barr the bloody thing completely and without question.
These mobile operators are simply making things easy for scammers and
resorting to crap complaint procedures ....
heres my solution - all premium services unless signed for at the
beginnning of a contract should be disabled BY DEFAULT. end of. that
goes for mobiles and BT,etc ....
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| do not spam me replied to jas0n on 25 Jun 2005 |
There can be little argument with your conclusion - a public enquiry would
shake the b*st*rds up.
One of the problems lies within the SP's (selective) ignorance of the
situation - they all make money from such things and so they choose to
ignore them!
but ........... until enough people make appropriate noises and take these
cretins to task then nothing will be achieved. Quote the act at them and if
they do not respond (and remove the offending charges) then complain to the
appropriate authorities ...... also the local Trading Standards *should*
support (depending if they have guts in your area - many are wet lettuces
{jobsworth/pension/etc} !!) - if they don't then start looking at ombudsman
intervention.
good luck!
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| jas0n replied to do not spam me on 26 Jun 2005 |
Are there any groups already setup to fight the good fight as such for
this sort of thing? it seems inefficient to individually contact trading
standards on a per case basis ... its the concept or ethos of this that
needs changing overall - We have got the costs for this thing down to a
few pounds every month so far so wouldnt spend the time/effort for that
but wouldnt mind putting time/effort into an overall push for a
solution.
There are lots of people getting hit by charges for premium services
they either havent subscribed to or inadvertantly subscribed without
knowing what they were actually doing. Then there are the dialers that
get onto peoples systems and use the landlines to make premium calls -
both solved if premium services were an opt in thing.
I can understand the position of them losing huge amounts of money from
things like the big brother vote or similar if they were to make premium
calls an opt in service by default but a solution to that would be some
sort PIN number known to you that would enable the premium dial service
on a per call basis. Its your money thats being used at the end of the
day so why not a PIN number solution.
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| Jon replied to george on 27 Jun 2005 |
If it's a charegable reverse charged message then it will have come from
a shortcode beginning with 8 or 6, eg 81010. Post the number here if you
get anymore.
I contacted my
Billing data takes about 4 days to become visible to customer service
operators.
To stop reverse-charge SMS messages reply with the word "stop". This
will stop any more coming through and you can then dispute the others if
you so wish with your service provider of course.
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Archived message: Unsolicited Text Messages (UK Mobiles - Phones, PAYG, Vodafone etc.)
