topic Re: Ferdamia Investments in My O2

Ferdamia Investments

Jlycett95 — Fri, 10 Jul 2020 20:16:03 GMT

Hello,

I recenetly discovered that I had a £4.50 p/w charge on my o2 bill from Ferdamia Investments, unforunately this has been going on for at least two years, (earliest bill I can look at) I first emailed Ferdamia in April and got a reply the next day saying they would look into it for me, since then, nothing. I have sent about ten e-mails there way and no replies. I have called the telephone numbers that other users on this community have shared and the phone number listed on their website. All numbers are answered by a switchboard company who simply 'take your details' and 'pass them on' to Ferdamia who apparently will contact you in the next 24-48 hours. This however is yet to happen. I am extremely upset as you can imagine, as I estimate that they have taken approximately £600 from me over the years. This was not a service that I knowingly or willingly signed up for!

Can anybody offer any advice? I am simply at a loose end here, and every day I grow tired of e-mailing/calling them.

I have complained to the Financial Ombudsman (won't do anything as they are based in Cyrpus), PSA have replied and given me a 5 digit short code (which I have also sent to Ferdamia for reference), I also called the O2 complaints team and told them the situation. Not sure what else I can do other than what for the day that a witheld number calls me?!

Thanks for your help,

Re: Ferdamia Investments

Cleoriff — Fri, 10 Jul 2020 20:25:29 GMT

Hi @Jlycett95

See community help here:

https://community.o2.co.uk/t5/How-to-Guides/Have-you-fallen-for-or-been-conned-into-a-premium-rate-s...

And O2 advice here…

https://www.o2.co.uk/help/account-and-billing/premium-service-checker

and this site will to help you get your money back…

https://payforitsucks.co.uk/

You should also ring Customer Service and ask them to place the following bars on your account:

Bar all Direct to bill debits

Bar Premium rate numbers

Re: Ferdamia Investments

Cleoriff — Fri, 10 Jul 2020 20:26:30 GMT

@Payforit_Sucks?

Re: Ferdamia Investments

Jlycett95 — Fri, 10 Jul 2020 21:34:35 GMT

Hi @Cleoriff

I have already had the charges on the account stopped recently, however since then i have had literally no contact from Ferdamia. It is almost as if they have blocked my e-mail address, or when they see that I have tried to call them they ignore it.

Re: Ferdamia Investments

Cleoriff — Fri, 10 Jul 2020 22:06:00 GMT

@Jlycett95

Hopefully @Payforit_Sucks will see this post as I have tagged him. He will be able to give you more helpful advice.

Re: Ferdamia Investments

Payforit_Sucks — Sat, 11 Jul 2020 08:14:00 GMT

Sorry for the delay in responding to this.

I thought we had heard the last of Ferdamia Investments! As far as we know, they no longer offer any “services” in the UK.

The Ferdamia website gives some contact details for the company. Have you tried these? https://www.ferdamia.com/contact.php

As this company is based in Cyprus, and the charges span a long period, getting your money back isn’t going to be easy. It will almost certainly involve a lot of work, and make you wish you had checked your bills more regularly.

You need to gather some information:

When did the charges start
When did the charges end
How much money in total was taken
What was the name of the “service” you were charged for?
What was the 5 digit shortcode associated with the "service"? 83463?

O2 should be able to provide this. If they are uncooperative, make a Subject Access Request under GDPR.

If you haven’t already, register a complaint with PSA. The complaint should include the fact that you were charged without consent, and that the company has failed to respond to your efforts to contact them. Ask PSA when the “service” stopped operating, and check whether you were charged after that date.

Make sure that your PSA complaint reference is on all correspondence relating to this matter and that PSA receive copies of this correspondence. Although PSA are not helpful to individual consumers, the companies take things more seriously if they know PSA are involved.

Be methodical and keep all evidence of steps you have taken to reolve the matter. Record any phone calls, but try to use email instead.

Essentially there are three parties to these tranactions

The “Service Provider” or “Level 2” provider – Ferdamia Investments in your case
The Accredited Financial Intermediary (API) or Level 1 provider – if the shortcode used was 83463, this will be Tap2Bill.
Customer care number
03330030599
Customer care email
customer.service@tap2bill.com
Postal address
Tap2Bill Limited
5 St. John's Lane
Farringdon
London
EC1M 4BH

Your network – O2 in this case

Legally, the purported contract was with Ferdamia, so you should start there. However, it is possible to hold any of these parties to account if they can be shown to have been negligent (for example by failing to apply the 120 day rule or by allowing charges after the service ended). Remember that these companies usually only provide Customer Service during working hours Mon-Fri.

If you are having trouble contacting Ferdamia, it's probably worth contacting Tap2Bill and masking them to help, while making it clear that you will hold tem responsible if you are unable to secure a refund from Ferdamia.

All three parties can be sent a Letter Before Action (LBA) asking for evidence of the contract under which your money was taken. Template letters are on the Payforitsucks website. This is an essential step before you can take a case through the Small Claims system (or for Ferdamia the European Small Claims system).

As these were “Payforit” charges, they were subject to the “Payforit” rules. It might be worth asking O2 and Tap2Bill:

Why the charges continued after the Payforit scheme ended in December 2019?
Why the Payforit 120 Day rule was not applied to these charges? (The 120 Day rule required subscriptions to be stopped in a consumer didn’t “interact” with the service for 120 days)

It costs nothing to send a LBA. Try to make sure you get an acknowledgment of receipt. If sent by email you can ask for delivery receipt and a read receipt. If you go to court it will be essential to have this proof. If you wish, we can check LBAs for you to ensure that they conform to the pre-action protocols.

If your LBAs don’t get you a refund, you will need to consider whether to take legal action, and against which party.

If you reach this point, or if you need further advice, please contact us through the payforitsucks.co.uk website.

There is also a Facebook group where you may be able to get support https://www.facebook.com/groups/psconsumers

I hope you manage to resolve this and recover your money.

Paul

Re: Ferdamia Investments

Cleoriff — Sat, 11 Jul 2020 07:55:13 GMT

Thanks for that Paul.

@Jlycett95 Hope that helps and you manage to get it all sorted.

Re: Ferdamia Investments

Jlycett95 — Wed, 15 Jul 2020 15:42:50 GMT

Hi Paul,

Finally, I have a refund on the way. I took your advice and called Tap2Bill who set up a call the next day with the Ferdamia office manager, she called this morning and offered a refund and I provided my IBAC number over e-mail and its on its way in the next 7 days. £495... I was charged £4.50 per week for 110 weeks. Ferdamia said that the first charge was on the 14th April 2018, however since I cannot look that far back on my O2 account, i've just sent of a SARS request to take a look at my bills from June 2017 - April 2018 to see if Ferdamia were being true full or not. They were not apologetic at all but to be honest I am that worn out and stressed out about this situation I just wanted to put it to bed, get my refund and move on. Still annoyed I cannot completely rest whilst waiting for the SARS to come through but i'll just be glad to get the majority, if not all, of my money back for now. Thanks again for your advice, the Tap2Bill point worked wonders. Shame it took me 4 months of haggling when it took less than 24 hours once i called them.

Re: Ferdamia Investments

jonsie — Wed, 15 Jul 2020 15:47:08 GMT

Fingers crossed all goes well with the refund. Persevernce pays off. The problem is they get away with too often as people just give up. Mind you, two years + is a long time for it to go unnoticed so hats off to them agreeing to refund in full.

Re: Ferdamia Investments

Cleoriff — Wed, 15 Jul 2020 17:31:53 GMT

I'll just mention @Payforit_Sucks here so he will come back and see how you have got on @Jlycett95

Well done for your perseverence!

Re: Ferdamia Investments

Payforit_Sucks — Wed, 15 Jul 2020 18:15:41 GMT

@Jlycett95 wrote:
Thanks again for your advice, the Tap2Bill point worked wonders. Shame it took me 4 months of haggling when it took less than 24 hours once i called them.

@Jlycett95 well done for persevering. Please come back here to confirm that you have received your refund when it lands in your account.

Disgraceful that O2 staff didn't provide this help at a much earlier stage.