Subscription Scam

[zjkw]

I've just got off the phone to Vodafone after finding a subscription to FunVid 03300535843 @ £4.50 a week. There are a number of things that I would like to check and make sure I understand, the agent didn't fill me with a great deal of confidance.

First thing, this was never knowingly subscribed to.

A premium bar has been put on the account for all services, does this stop future charges to this and any other subscriptions?  When I asked if I should reply STOP to the number she said "I wouldn't bother" and sent me a link to http://mobilechargesupport.com saying if I put my number in there it would block future charges, but it said I have no subscriptions, what is this site?

What should I do?

Thanks.

[BandOfBrothers]

Hi @zjkw

The thoughts are that if a person replies STOP then the person / company knows they have a live line. 

Some info in > What-can-I-do-about-nuisance-spam-or-marketing-texts.

This may help too > https://psauthority.org.uk/for-consumers/unexpected-phone-charge

[jonb]

Same happened to my wife a year ago, Got scammed over £100 before she noticed. Vodafone offered £20 refund, then failed to honour that!

This is an "Opt out" system, where you can be unintentionally "opted in" by clicking, or failing to click a deliberately obtuse option on a web site somewhere, or responding, or failing to respond to some obscure SMS you received at random. The onus is on you, the consumer, to then opt out. 

Sure, send STOP to some random number, only to find that they then sell your number on as a guaranteed live number, and you are bombarded with nuisance calls/texts.

Apparently the mobile phone operator receives a percentage of the charge, which is why they have no wish to set the bar on by default. Pure profiteering on their behalf it looks like to me.

Once the bar is set on you should be ok, but you will likely have to stump up the charges incurred so far i am sorry to say

[Colleen]

@zjkw We'll be happy to access your account and check that everything's in place to ensure this doesn't happen again 😊 

So we can look into this, I've sent you a private message with details on how to get in touch.

[hrym]

The thing with barrring premium rate or charge-to-bill texts is that it denies you a number of legitimate services such as charitable donations or, in some cases, paying for parking.   It's to provide full functionality that the default is Off.   I don't know whether the welcome pack mentions bars and contains advice to review them, but it would be a good idea if it did.

Payment by text is a legitimate servie and still has a place, even in the age of smartphones and (mostly) good data connections.   However, rather like banking payments, it's showing its age and could do with an overhaul to provide addition security and keep off scammers.

It's easy to sign up to something without realising it by using an apparently one-off service or interacting with a pop-up (sometimes, just closing it).   On top of that, it looks as though you can be signed up by someone entering a phone number incorrectly or even by a "service" adding a random number to their list in the same was that PPI claim texts get sent out - they don't know who you are or if the number is even active, they just use an appropriately structured number string.