@Su5an
It's really important that you take action to stop any further charges, either by sending the STOP text or by calling the customer service number. Nexgen will continue to charge you £4.50 per week if you don't do so.
If you want your money back you will have to start by asking Nexgen. Don't expect any help from O2 as they appear to be complicit in these scams. Repeated requests for help from defrauded customers have been ignored.
Insist on a FULL refund from Nexgen. You can email them at info@nexgenmobi.com. Dealing with it by email will give you the evidence you need to escalate your dispute if a refund is refused.
Little is known about this company. They have a professional looking website at www.nexgenmobi.com, but a closer look shows the site to be insecure and lacking in any real detail.
A London address is given:
63/66 Hatton Garden
Fifth Floor, Suite 23
London EC1N 8LE
This address appears to be an accommodation address shared by a large number of companies. No company details can be found at Companies House, and Phone-paid Services Authority have identified the company as:
Nexgen International Limited, based in Belize City, Belize. Their address is:
5827 Corner Of Graduate Crescent and Bachelor Avenue,
Belize City
Belize 123
They are currently registered with Belize Companies House, which lists them as follows:
NEXGEN INT LIMITED 163347 Active
Services run by this company include:
- MyContent
- Games4Mobile
- Just4Life
- MyLifestyle
Some of these services are known to be currently under investigation by PSA.
If they claim you consented to the charges, you should ask for:
Screenshots of the subscription workflow where you were alleged to have signed up for this service.
- A description of what the service you are supposed to have subscribed to provides? Is this a newsletter, access to a web portal?
- Any evidence that after supposedly signing up for the service, you actually used it
- The complete web server log of the subscription, including the User Agent strings containing all device details (browser, device type, device IP address) together with dates and times.
- Full company details of the company operating the service, country of registration, full name of company, company number and registered company address.
You need to be aware that O2 leak your phone number to third parties when you access the internet using mobile data, and this is probably how your number was acquired in order to make these charges. The system which does this is called 'Payforit'.
Companies like Nexgen Ltd use vulnerabilities of the 'Payforit' system to obtain consumers numbers and sign them up to bogus subscriptions. Simply closing an innocent looking popup can pass your number to these scammers.
You should also report this scam to the regulator: https://psauthority.org.uk/for-consumers/report-an-issue.
Also make sure that O2 place a “charge to mobile” bar on your account to prevent any further fraudulent Payforit subscriptions.
I hope you manage to resolve this matter. This fraud is a disgrace to the mobile communications industry and O2 should be doing more to assist affected customers and to protect their customers from Payforit fraud.
