Premium rate services petition to O2

[MI5]

EE have introduced a 2!step verification process for premium rate services. 

Vodafone allow customers full control within the My Vodafone app. 

O2 currently do nothing and many thousands of customers are scammed out of a lot of money every month. 

What will you do O2!to keep up with the competition and protect your customers or are you happy to take a cut and leave customers exposed?

if you want to add your voice to this, please comment below. 

Over to you, O2 ?

[RichG61]

Totally agree. How can anyone have confidence in - or recommend to others - a company which allows its customers to be scammed without taking any practical steps to prevent it from happening?

[Merlion]

I support this sensible process after been scammed last year. Come on O2 show your ethical backbone

[MI5]

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@MI5 wrote:
End of another week and still no response to my last email........

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and another week has passed with email silence.........

[007]

i got charged five times with lasevia limited (£4.50x5) with my O2 contract, rang the helpline but all they can do is blocked the scam (hopefully) and they can't refund your  money! absolutely diappointed!

[Cleoriff]

@007

One of our members @Payforit_Sucks advises this about Lasevia (follow the link to get the best advice)

https://community.o2.co.uk/t5/Pay-Monthly/Additional-charges/m-p/1117652/highlight/true#M148547

[Pal]

Agree with this completely. Shocked that o2 aren't concerned about the risk of reputational damage and loss of custom. Consumer protection is a fundamental aspect of running a business right?

[Anonymous]

Thing is though if they lose customers there always more ready to take their place

[adamtemp64]

@Pal The issue is that o2 are following the guidelines issued by ofcom consumer protection has to come from the regulator ofcom.

Yes o2 can go above the set guidelines but they will not act unless pressure is put on them 

I fear the perception of the community is that they have a big say on here, but how many active community users v to total customers is a small proportion 17,391 community members out of some 32 million customers so the force from here is very small (source this community and financial results)

[Payforit_Sucks]

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@007 wrote:

i got charged five times with lasevia limited (£4.50x5) with my O2 contract, rang the helpline but all they can do is blocked the scam (hopefully) and they can't refund your  money! absolutely diappointed!

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@007 I hope that you have stopped the charges, as otherwise Lasevia will continue to plunder your account each week!

If you have discussed the matter with Lasevia and have failed to reach an agreement, then under the Payforit rules you are entitled to escalate your complaint to your network (O2 in this case). If they fail to meet this obligation (you would expect them to investigate and provide proof of your consent to the "subscription"), or if you are not happy with the adjudication, that would then be a matter for a formal complaint and ultimately for the Ombudsman.

Unfortunately, Lasevia Ltd are based in Cyprus, making it difficult to pursue them directly. You could instead pursue Tap2Bill who were the level 1 aggregator that processed the payment.

It might also be worth reminding O2 of the reassuring words on their website:

Again their failure to do what they say they will do could be cause for a formal complaint. It would be hard for them to say that Lasevia Ltd are not acting fraudulently given their Trustpilot reviews.

Because O2 can hardly not claim to be aware of the problems customers are having with fraudulent "subscriptions" from Lasevia, you could pursue O2 through the Small Claims procedure, citing their negligence in allowing this fraud to continue.

It might also be worth an email to the O2 Data Controller, DPO@O2.com, to ask which of the GDPR bases is being used to justify passing your phone number to third parties via the Payforit API. O2 don't ask for explicit consent to do this, so it is probably the "legitimate interests" basis. If that's the case, ask for evidence that the three part test has been properly applied:

There are three elements to the legitimate interests basis. It helps to think of this as a three-part test. They need to :

• identify a legitimate interest;
• show that the processing is necessary to achieve it; and
• balance it against the individual’s interests, rights and freedoms.

I do not believe that it is necessary for O2 to be passing your phone number through the API. If you want to sign up to a phone-paid service, you can do so quite successfully using a WiFi connection that doesn't have this vulnerability. There is also substantial evidence of consumer harm resulting directly from this disclosure, which has almost certainly not been considered by O2 as part of their preparations for GDPR.

[TrishaA]

Totally agree and support this much needed petition. O2 need to protect their customers.