- Joined
- Oct 11, 2016
- Messages
- 2
- Reaction score
- 1
Hi, I am new to this forum and have just registered to be able to say thank you for the information given and share my experience.
Firstly, I think this is the third time I have suffered from this scam over about three years. The first time, I let a Belarussian child who was staying with us use my phone to play a game whilst waiting for a meal to be prepared. They may or may not have clicked on something by mistake as their English was very poor but this ended up with a Payforit subscription which I was unaware of and took a lot of effort to resolve.
I have also provided a mobile phone (on the Three network) to a refugee for her use and it has a zero credit limit on the account to ensure no extra charges can be incurred (or so you would hope!!!). I think she fell foul of this type of scam about a year ago and again last Friday night (Friday night as predicted above). Yes it was Friday night, Tapvids and the Three network. She sent me a message to say she had received a text (like those described above) and that she had not clicked on anything . I rang her and she was very upset about it, she is a very honest and conscientious person and has suffered a lot and this is not needed. I suggested texting Stop to the number but this came up with a message stating there would be a charge to send this so she didn't. I tried to ring the landline number but of course this advised customer services is closed until Monday.
Yesterday, Monday, I checked the Phonepayplus website which advised to contact the company first to resolve it. I tried to phone Tapvids (or txtnation or whoever they are as the phone message does not give a name). I was waiting to speak to someone for 7 to 8 minutes whilst messages kept saying 'that they know my time is valuable, thank you for holding and someone would be with me as soon as possible. When they did eventually answer they cut the call on me after just a few seconds.
I rang Three and advised that I have been a victim of this scam. They confirmed a charge of £4,50 added to my account for Friday night and insisted that we must have opted to subscribe to this service. I knew this was not the case and had already read some of the posts above so understood exactly what had happened. The person said he understood there were some scams and that they took several calls every day about these charges. He asked if we had texted Stop to the number but confirmed there would be a 10p charge for doing so. I advised this is just rubbing salt into the wound. He tried to ring them himself so we could have a 3 way conversation. We were on hold for 5 minutes or so with no answer but I kept telling him what a disgrace it is that the network providers are facilitating this crime by passing on the charges. He said he would not waste any more of my time and would ring and ensure the charges were stopped and that he would add a £5 credit to my account to cover the charge on Friday.
I got a call later yesterday afternoon from Three to see if I was happy with the way my call had been dealt with. I advised that I was happy that the charges would be cancelled etc but I am very unhappy that these scammers are being facilitated by the network providers to carry out these crimes as there is no way that I would pay them directly. Whilst these scams are allowed to happen and you cannot apply any bar on these charges as standard then Three (and the others) are aiding and abetting this criminal activity. Three have a campaign at present which says 'Make it Right'. They are meant to resolve issues for the customer, well Three, how are you doing at this one, very poorly I believe.
Today I rang Phonepayplus (the alleged regulator) who again tried to insist that we must have clicked to accept this subscription. I told her of how many others I have read about on the internet who have suffered the same fate and she said you cannot believe what you read on Google!!! They appear to be another toothless regulator who hardly want to listen to or believe what the complainants are saying. I did look through some of the Tribunal adjudications shown on their website which shows that many of these companies have already been found guilty of forcing subscriptions without the users consent/knowledge, spurious charges and the failure to cease charges even when people have texted Stop. Why therefore do they not want to believe us when we tell them that is what has happened to us.
The results of the tribunals show that where fines have been levied the amount of the fine is considerably less than the amount of the revenue they believe has been gained (if I am reading it correctly). For instance where they believe the likley revenue to have been in a band of £500,000 to £1,000,000 they levy a fine of £150,000. Well that is a real deterrent I think not. The figures should be the other way around.Mind you there was a remark that said that anyone who had been unfairly charged and requested a refund must be given one. What percentage of those poor people will have received a refund (I suspect somewhere between very few and nil).
I heard on the news recently that fraud is now the largest crime that people suffer in the UK and that the government wanted to try and reduce this. Well, unfortunately, it appears to be just lip service as crime like this would take very little to resolve. I assume that Three and the other network providers are probably receiving something like a third of this revenue. Little wonder then that they refuse to even discuss this as mentioned in the news article I found and pasted below.
http://www.itv.com/news/2016-05-10/...-unwanted-messages-heres-what-to-do-about-it/
The fraudsters appear to be making millions but so are the network operators who are aiding and abetting this crime. However, whilst watching Panorama about BHS and how Sir Philip Green has been allowed to steal billions from the firm and the UK and he is still allowed to get away with it what hope is there for such trivial matters as this.
Firstly, I think this is the third time I have suffered from this scam over about three years. The first time, I let a Belarussian child who was staying with us use my phone to play a game whilst waiting for a meal to be prepared. They may or may not have clicked on something by mistake as their English was very poor but this ended up with a Payforit subscription which I was unaware of and took a lot of effort to resolve.
I have also provided a mobile phone (on the Three network) to a refugee for her use and it has a zero credit limit on the account to ensure no extra charges can be incurred (or so you would hope!!!). I think she fell foul of this type of scam about a year ago and again last Friday night (Friday night as predicted above). Yes it was Friday night, Tapvids and the Three network. She sent me a message to say she had received a text (like those described above) and that she had not clicked on anything . I rang her and she was very upset about it, she is a very honest and conscientious person and has suffered a lot and this is not needed. I suggested texting Stop to the number but this came up with a message stating there would be a charge to send this so she didn't. I tried to ring the landline number but of course this advised customer services is closed until Monday.
Yesterday, Monday, I checked the Phonepayplus website which advised to contact the company first to resolve it. I tried to phone Tapvids (or txtnation or whoever they are as the phone message does not give a name). I was waiting to speak to someone for 7 to 8 minutes whilst messages kept saying 'that they know my time is valuable, thank you for holding and someone would be with me as soon as possible. When they did eventually answer they cut the call on me after just a few seconds.
I rang Three and advised that I have been a victim of this scam. They confirmed a charge of £4,50 added to my account for Friday night and insisted that we must have opted to subscribe to this service. I knew this was not the case and had already read some of the posts above so understood exactly what had happened. The person said he understood there were some scams and that they took several calls every day about these charges. He asked if we had texted Stop to the number but confirmed there would be a 10p charge for doing so. I advised this is just rubbing salt into the wound. He tried to ring them himself so we could have a 3 way conversation. We were on hold for 5 minutes or so with no answer but I kept telling him what a disgrace it is that the network providers are facilitating this crime by passing on the charges. He said he would not waste any more of my time and would ring and ensure the charges were stopped and that he would add a £5 credit to my account to cover the charge on Friday.
I got a call later yesterday afternoon from Three to see if I was happy with the way my call had been dealt with. I advised that I was happy that the charges would be cancelled etc but I am very unhappy that these scammers are being facilitated by the network providers to carry out these crimes as there is no way that I would pay them directly. Whilst these scams are allowed to happen and you cannot apply any bar on these charges as standard then Three (and the others) are aiding and abetting this criminal activity. Three have a campaign at present which says 'Make it Right'. They are meant to resolve issues for the customer, well Three, how are you doing at this one, very poorly I believe.
Today I rang Phonepayplus (the alleged regulator) who again tried to insist that we must have clicked to accept this subscription. I told her of how many others I have read about on the internet who have suffered the same fate and she said you cannot believe what you read on Google!!! They appear to be another toothless regulator who hardly want to listen to or believe what the complainants are saying. I did look through some of the Tribunal adjudications shown on their website which shows that many of these companies have already been found guilty of forcing subscriptions without the users consent/knowledge, spurious charges and the failure to cease charges even when people have texted Stop. Why therefore do they not want to believe us when we tell them that is what has happened to us.
The results of the tribunals show that where fines have been levied the amount of the fine is considerably less than the amount of the revenue they believe has been gained (if I am reading it correctly). For instance where they believe the likley revenue to have been in a band of £500,000 to £1,000,000 they levy a fine of £150,000. Well that is a real deterrent I think not. The figures should be the other way around.Mind you there was a remark that said that anyone who had been unfairly charged and requested a refund must be given one. What percentage of those poor people will have received a refund (I suspect somewhere between very few and nil).
I heard on the news recently that fraud is now the largest crime that people suffer in the UK and that the government wanted to try and reduce this. Well, unfortunately, it appears to be just lip service as crime like this would take very little to resolve. I assume that Three and the other network providers are probably receiving something like a third of this revenue. Little wonder then that they refuse to even discuss this as mentioned in the news article I found and pasted below.
http://www.itv.com/news/2016-05-10/...-unwanted-messages-heres-what-to-do-about-it/
The fraudsters appear to be making millions but so are the network operators who are aiding and abetting this crime. However, whilst watching Panorama about BHS and how Sir Philip Green has been allowed to steal billions from the firm and the UK and he is still allowed to get away with it what hope is there for such trivial matters as this.
