topic Premium SMS scam in Discussions & Feedback

Premium SMS scam

andysmith1 — Mon, 27 Nov 2017 14:42:27 GMT

Bit of a rant incoming...

A few days ago after visiting a site on my phone I was confronted with a barrage of pop-up ads which were swiftly closed. I then received the following SMS messages:

Sender: Receipt

Message: FreeMsg: Thank you for subscribing to globalcams.world for £4.50 a week until you text STOP to 83463. HELP? 03300538665

Sender: FreeMsg

Message: FreeMsg: Watch cams here http://source.globalcams.world/globalcams.php

I, of course, text STOP to 83463. However, it was too late and I had already been charged the stated £4.50.

I rang the number today and was told that I would not be charged again but as "the service was activated from the handset" they would not refund the charge. They repeated this over and over again when I pressed them for a refund.

I spoke to o2 customer services who agreed to apply a credit to my account as a goodwill gesture. However, they said they were unable to reverse the charge or block any premium rate incoming SMS messages - they can only bar outgoing premium calls/messages.

Two things about this absolutely stagger me:

- o2 have clearly provided the means for this to happen. The only way a website would have been able to obtain my phone number is if o2 supplied it. I'm very interested in the technical side of this if anyone has any details? As far as I can tell o2 don't send any extra HTTP headers to all websites with any idetifying information. Perhaps just to pre-approved 'billing gateways'? However they have clearly arranged something with the company that scammed me using such 'dark patterns'.

- There is apparently no way to block these charges. This is a lie - the network operators could easily block these charges if they want to. If I reported my debit card as lost to my bank, they would deny any attempted charges to it. Network operators could easily do this if they wanted to.

One amusing thing to me is the actual content of the 'service' I apparently subscribed to for £4.50 a week. If you take a look it's just a bunch of embedded YouTube live streams i.e. absolutely nothing of value!

Re: Premium SMS scam

Anonymous — Mon, 27 Nov 2017 14:51:51 GMT

Hi @andysmith1 if you click on any external links & you are charged it’s not o2’s problem. You will need to contact the company charging you. Read this guide

https://community.o2.co.uk/t5/Pay-Monthly-Pay-and-Go/Have-you-fallen-for-or-been-conned-into-a-premium-rate-scam-What/ba-p/968023

Re: Premium SMS scam

andysmith1 — Mon, 27 Nov 2017 15:00:14 GMT

If o2 cared about their customers it should be their problem. I was tricked by misdirection into clicking a link. o2 provided the means for them to bill me. Do you think that's fair?

Re: Premium SMS scam

Anonymous — Mon, 27 Nov 2017 15:28:54 GMT

It’s not fair I agree but it’s the way these things have to be dealt with I’m afraid

Re: Premium SMS scam

Cleoriff — Mon, 27 Nov 2017 17:43:49 GMT

@andysmith1It's not really a question of fairness and really has nothing to do with O2. Many people want access to these premium rate services and sign up for them willingly. O2 aren't to know that you don't actually want them. However... follow the advice above and hopefully you will get money refunded .

Re: Premium SMS scam

andysmith1 — Mon, 27 Nov 2017 18:17:01 GMT

As stated in my original post o2 are refunding me as a goodwill gesture.

But I'm still angry about the situation. I'm sure there's thousands of other people who have fallen prey to a scam like this. A scam that could very easily be eliminated by network operators by requiring a more explicit agreement on the user's side e.g. actually sending an SMS message to confirm acceptance of the charges.

The ability to block any premium rate services is also completely do-able from their end, they just choose not to offer it.

Re: Premium SMS scam

Cleoriff — Mon, 27 Nov 2017 18:19:17 GMT

Totally agree with that @andysmith1 It should be easy enough to implement a 2 step verification system...

Re: Premium SMS scam

MI5 — Mon, 27 Nov 2017 18:24:45 GMT

I would still report them to the PSA for refusing to refund you.
They are obliged to do so under the terms of their license so the PSA need to know about this.
"Globalcams" is far too close to "Globalscams" for my liking too!

Re: Premium SMS scam

MI5 — Mon, 27 Nov 2017 18:26:49 GMT

@Cleoriff wrote:
Totally agree with that @andysmith1 It should be easy enough to implement a 2 step verification system...

Which is what we have been saying for a long time on here, but clearly neither O2, nor any other network is prepared to implement this.

Re: Premium SMS scam

andysmith1 — Mon, 27 Nov 2017 18:37:46 GMT

Yes, I have reported them to the PSA.

One thing that really concerns me about this is the privacy implications. o2 have obviously supplied my mobile number to this website in order for them to charge me. That's not something I agreed to and surely I should be able to opt out of this?

I'm guessing what happened is something like this:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/01/25/o2_hands_out_phone_numbers_to_websites/

Do o2 have a whitelist of sites that they still hand over this information to for billing purposes? I'd really like some clatification from o2 on this.

Re: Premium SMS scam

MI5 — Mon, 27 Nov 2017 18:42:04 GMT

I've no idea how they actually get your number but I'd always assumed that those pop ups interrogated the sim card to get the info required.
O2 won't respond to you on here. You'll need to raise a complaint to get a response from them, but I doubt any response would answer the question directly either.

Re: Premium SMS scam

andysmith1 — Mon, 27 Nov 2017 18:46:02 GMT

As a software developer I can answer that with some authority - there is no way for a website to retrieve details like that from your phone or SIM card. The only possibility here is that o2 have injected these details into the web traffic between my phone and the receiving web server. Which is why I attribute a large amount of blame to o2 (and other network operators) for allowing these scams to exist.

Can you recommend the best way of escalating this complaint?

Thanks to everyone who has replied btw, much appreciated

Re: Premium SMS scam

jonsie — Mon, 27 Nov 2017 18:58:22 GMT

https://www.o2.co.uk/how-to-complain

I always, wrongly now it seems, that if you clicked on a link say Facebook that your number is registered there and these sharks get the information from there.

And yes I agree, 2 step authorisation should be implemented easily by networks.

Re: Premium SMS scam

MI5 — Mon, 27 Nov 2017 18:58:59 GMT

All official methods of complaint are here https://www.o2.co.uk/how-to-complain or you can send an email directly to the CEO's office.
Email address can be found on Google.

Re: Premium SMS scam

jonsie — Mon, 27 Nov 2017 19:06:06 GMT

I daren't even guess the number of emails he gets these days from disgruntled customers and we will keep pointing members there.

Re: Premium SMS scam

MI5 — Mon, 27 Nov 2017 19:11:49 GMT

If it was me, I'd want to know too tbh.

Re: Premium SMS scam

Anonymous — Mon, 27 Nov 2017 19:24:04 GMT

I’d definitely want to know what was going on in my company if it was me

Re: Premium SMS scam

andysmith1 — Mon, 27 Nov 2017 20:09:42 GMT

Thanks again all, I have emailed Mark Evans.

I don't really expect much of a response to this - I assume the amount of money mobile operators make with systems like these is a big disincentive to prevent this kind of billing or make it harder to exploit 😞

Re: Premium SMS scam

MI5 — Mon, 27 Nov 2017 20:13:28 GMT

The longer this goes on and the less we see networks trying to prevent it, makes me fully agree with you.

Re: Premium SMS scam

PhoneChanger — Tue, 28 Nov 2017 10:15:09 GMT

@andysmith1 there is also the possibility that the link you have selected has sent an SMS message from your phone to them in order for them to have your phone number and to charge you for this.