85222 -THESE NUMBERS AND TYPES OF 'CON' CALLS SHOULD BE BANNED BY O2

[Anonymous]

As a responsible company O2 should ban these types of calls from coming through to our phones.  This has cost me over £8 for something advertised as FREE!

[Anonymous]

Hi,

Report this to  PhonePay Plus 

http://www.phonepayplus.org.uk/

Info on this number ive found is 

SMSUNLTS & txtintl is a subscription service; it will cost £1.50 per week until you sent STOP to 80160. Smsunltd is a subscription service where the customer is entitled to get 200 international SMS per month.Subscriber is charged £1.50 a week.(£6.00 a month)

Look here :

http://service.o2.co.uk/IQ/SRVS/CGI-BIN/WEBCGI.EXE?New,Kb=Companion,question=ref(User):str(Mobile),C...

http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/tps/index.html

[perksie]

Have you asked them to stop the calls?

Mobile companies do not block calls you need to report this to Phone Pay Plus who can get you refunded and take action as long as you didn't sign up for these calls:

http://www.phonepayplus.org.uk/For-the-Public/Make-a-complaint.aspx

[Anonymous]

85544

Similar story with the above number.Having you been getting texts from 85544 asking if you would like to win tickets.

Then BEWARE this is another one of those rip off companies who say “you must have registered for the service via one of our affiliate websites”. NO I DID NOT

 and if i did which is unlikely i was duped into subscribing. They have a website called winmeaseat.com

Check your mobile phone bill now and go back several months.

They will charge you £1.50 every time they send a text to your mobile.

I am with O2, and they charge O2 who then charge you.

O2 were not really helpful, they gave me a telephone number of 08702 480277 – the company being winmeaseat.com. I rang the number between the hours of 9-5 to get a recorded message saying ” the office is now closed and is open between 9am and 5pm” yes i was ringing between that time. I decided to send stop to the text (apparently they must stop once you do this - its the law).

I got a message back saying if you would like to subscribe again text back "yes" - not likely!! At the bottom of the text is a number 0844 7451730, so i rang it and it was answered by a lady called Hayley, with no mention of the company name.

I established this was the correct company and passed by message across in no uncertain terms that i wanted my money back. Here is how they refund it - within 5-7 days you get a message with a code which you present at the post office - they then give you cash.

That is all very well but why are these companies allowed to operate like this.

How many people are not aware of trickle charges like these?

The O2 customer support were equally unhelpful - here is the dialogue with their ever so nice but totally useless customer support team:

Welcome to O2. Someone will be with you soon.

You're through to 'O2 : Tiwari'

Tiwari: Hi I'm O2 : Tiwari. How can I help?

Josancel: I have £2.50 on my bill from an unsolicited text message from 85544?

Josancel: I have never subscribed and how can this happen?

Tiwari: I'll check this for you.

Tiwari: Can you please help me with your full name?

Josancel: (deleted )

Josancel: I have looked on the Internet bulletin boards and this is apparently a scan from winmeaseat.com

Tiwari: It's not matching with our records.

Josancel: What do you mean

Tiwari: I mean your name isn't matching with our records.

Josancel: Don't be silly I have been with O2 for 15 years

Josancel: I have my current bill open on the web right now

Tiwari: Okay.

Tiwari: Thanks.

Tiwari: Let me check again.

Josancel: Account: 1+++++++

Tiwari: Thanks.

Tiwari: Please can you tell me the 4th & 5th character of your security answer?

Josancel: No idea what you are talking about . Please ask the security question

Tiwari: It's Mother's maiden name.

Josancel: ++++++

Josancel: ++

Tiwari: Thanks.

Josancel: Can you please speed up

Tiwari: Thanks for waiting.

Josancel: You are very slow

Tiwari: I can see that there is a charge of £2.5 from 85544 and the charges are for receiving texts from the same number.

Josancel: Haaliluuhah

Josancel: These are unsolicited nuisance texts and I should not be being charged

Tiwari: You can stop it by sending STOP to 85544.

Tiwari: This service can be start or stop from your phone.

Josancel: As per advice on the web I have texted a STOP message to them but my question is why are they on my charge list in the first place? Please refund this

Tiwari: This service can be start or stopped from your phone so it's not wrongly charged.

Josancel: THIS IS A SCAM and I am surprised that O2 allows this unsolicited trickle charge scam to operate

I never started this text - it was unsolicited

his is wrongly charged

You should not be allowing this to your customers

Tiwari: If you want I can ask my support team to check this for you again.

Josancel: I do not want to pay for this unsolicited rubbish text messages. Please confirm the refund to my bill or I will be lodging an official complaint and stopping my account

Tiwari: If you want you can chat with my supervisor.

Josancel: What good will that do? - Please confirm you are carrying out my reasonable customer demands

Tiwari: I cannot credit the amount but I can request the support team to look in to it.

Tiwari: Or I can connect you to my supervisor.

Josancel: I will now be looking through all previous bills to ensure that you have not been taking my money under false pretenses

Please ask you support team to stop this ROBBERY

Tiwari: You can forward the feedback to my supervisor as well.

Josancel: You are now wasting my time since your supervisor can see this message exchange and presumably he/she can read .

Tiwari: Okay.

Tiwari: Let me arrange this to forward to my support team.

Tiwari: They'll get back to you within 3-5 working days.

Josancel: THS MESSAGE TEXT WAS NOT SOLICITED AND YOU ARE CHARGING ME FOR SERVICES NOT ASKED FOR OR DEMANDED. THAT IS ROBBERY

This is illegal in the UK and you should immediately refund my £2.50 . I will be writing to :

Telefónica UK Limited,

Correspondence Department,

PO BOX 694

Winchester

SO23 5AP

Dispute Resolution

If we haven’t been able to sort things out within eight weeks, the ombudsman can review your complaint for free. Unless there is a deadlock situation, they won’t look at cases that are less than eight weeks old. Contact them directly at:

Ombudsman Services: Communications

PO Box 730

Warrington

WA4 6WU

Phone: 0330 440 1614 

Textphone: 0330 440 1600

www.os-communications.org

Email: enquiries@os-communications.org

[perksie]

It is not illegal for O2 to charge you for these texts, you need to contact Phone Pay Plus as above and let them deal with it.

Therefore any complaint made to O2 is likely to fail as you were advised. 

Any refund is owed to you by the company that sent the text and PPP can often sort that too.

[Anonymous]

I thought I would add a few words of conculsion to the exchange of views these types of calls have provoked along with my observations.

As the previous poster has said, It seems these calls are not illegal. However once "hooked" no amount of calls to O2 can solve the problem. In my case I had to engage directly with the 85544 number provider company, which turned out to be Winmeaseat.com, who had been charging my Phone for nearly 3 years without me noticing. 

Here I have to be scrupulously fair to WinmeaSeat.com, in that their customer services Manager Tony, probably because of all the fuss I was making, did call me to take me through the contractual circumstances of my engagement with them, reassure me that they were not infact a "Scam" but had a valid business model , and then in recognition that I had not intended ever to engage with them ...offer me a refund of £100 which I eventually encashed at the Post Office this week.

So all's well that ends well.

Here are my own circumstances for all of you others out there who have suffered similar annoyances in the hope that you will learn from my experience.

1. Back in 2010 I was trawling the Internet for a spare part for my car when the mouse inadvertently hovered over one of those annoying pop up ads that arise on some sites. ( I can't be sure of the exact circumstances) No doubt thinking that this was something to do with the topic at hand and not realising it was a totally separate supplier - I keyed in my mobile number, thinking perhaps I would be contacted for the part.

2. Some time later and to my mind at the time - totally unconnected - I received a text from Winmeaseat.com - which probably arrived just as one of my business meetings was about to commence. Again not paying much attention I replied YES this text and moved on .

3. That sequence of events then triggured a Legal Contract between Winmeaseat.com and myself that allowed them to send me 2 texts a month at £1.50 per text. All these texts were scrupulously deleted as they arrived since I had no interest in them and thought this was "Free" advertising that was unsolicited.

4. At some stage my dear Lady looked at my last phone bill and noticed the charges which by then had dated back to 2010 and queried them. This provoked my Audit of what was happening and of course long emails and words with O2 - who I felt were responsible. Not so however - it seems I have been well and trully "hoisted by my own petard" and the trouble was with my inattention to the detail of these silly texts all along.

5. To be fair to Winmeaseat.com - they say they have a valid business model and can illustrate this by showing recent winners of tickets and other prizes that they distribute to their base in the UK - paid for by all the £1.50s collected from valid customers and no doubt a large number of dopes - like me!

6. The contract was immediately terminated when I texted STOP to the number Winmeaseat.com furnished and this in fact worked and I received a text confirming this at once. 

7. Tony the WinmeaSeat.com Customer Services Manager took time to explain the business model they apply and had all his facts correct about my, inadvertent, contractual obligation and how this arose. He, on behalf of his company, did show magnanimity and was sympathetic to my obviously being an inadvertent customer and supplied a sustantial refund via the Post Office.

8. The whole saga has taken about 6 weeks in total to resolve and been a progressive learning experience which I have neither the time or ( definitely) the inclination to repeat.

Conclusions

These 85544 type number business models are very clever but the old Latin phrase applies "CAVEAT EMPTOR"  - be careful when you are on the internet when the pop up adds come at you. Be especially careful to read any unsollicited text messages and deal with them early. We live in a tricky world where contracts and commitments can easily be inadvertently triggured and once you are hooked -IT IS VERY DIFFICULT TO WRIGGLE OFF THE HOOK.

[jonsie]

Yes it's easy to fall for these type of services and especially for younger smartphone users. Some good advice and you were lucky that you got such a satisfactory outcome and had the fortitude to persue this to a conclusion.

Some of these companies aren't so reputable and only by claiming through PPP gets any form of refund. Well done though.

[perksie]

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@Anonymous wrote:

These 85544 type number business models are very clever but the old Latin phrase applies "CAVEAT EMPTOR"  - be careful when you are on the internet when the pop up adds come at you. Be especially careful to read any unsollicited text messages and deal with them early. We live in a tricky world where contracts and commitments can easily be inadvertently triggured and once you are hooked -IT IS VERY DIFFICULT TO WRIGGLE OFF THE HOOK.

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Well done for taking the time to sort this out properly.

Many people just find it easier to blame their service provider when it isn't their responsibility.

[Anonymous]

One last point should be mentioned concerning the 85544 number in the pursuit of "fairplay" to the supplier.Previous postings have mentioned that texting STOP to the supplier will also cost you money?

 I can assure you that this is NOT the case and Tony the particular Customer Services Manager I engaged with was at pains to point this out.

I am not sure about the other numbers mentioned.

A big thank you to previous postings who put me onto the process of terminating these text messages by sending the STOP command.

Finally , be careful out there !

[perksie]

Glad you got it all sorted out, these companies are a total pest!