Stripey giraffe

[Mins]

I have been charged £12 a month for 4 months from stripey giraffe. When I emailed them to advised I've never subscribed to this. They advised me I did on 31.12.18 at 2 PM. This is clearly not possible as I was working from 7.30 to 4pm. How can I go about claiming my money back from either this company or 02 as I did not give permission for any of these companies to take money through my contract. Someone please help!!!

[MI5 · Accepted solution]

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

[MI5]

And here https://payforitsucks.co.uk/
Also ask customer service to place. A direct to bill bar on your account to prevent any further charges.

[Cleoriff]

Hi @Mins 

Follow the advice here

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

also check this website out for help https://payforitsucks.co.uk/

[Payforit_Sucks]

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@Mins wrote:
I have been charged £12 a month for 4 months from stripey giraffe. When I emailed them to advised I've never subscribed to this. They advised me I did on 31.12.18 at 2 PM. This is clearly not possible as I was working from 7.30 to 4pm. How can I go about claiming my money back from either this company or 02 as I did not give permission for any of these companies to take money through my contract. Someone please help!!!

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@Mins 

Unfortunately, you are the victim of a Payforit scam. O2 have a policy of not helping customers deal with these scams unless they are forced.to.

If you've already been refused a refund, your first step should be to send a "letter before action" to StripeyGiraffe Ltd. Company details, including the details of the director are here .

A template letter before action is here.

These "services" usually pay out on receipt of a letter before action, but if they don't, contact me again either on this forum or through the Payforitsucks website and I'll support you in taking the matter further.

It is a disgrace that even after BBC Watchdog showed how these "subscriptions" can be started fraudulently, O2 are still failing to meet their obligations under the Payforit rules. Under the rules, you are entitled to escalate your dispute to O2, if you have discussed the dispute with the "service provider" and are dissatisfied with the result. It might be worth pressing O2 on this. They know there is a problem, and indeed are introducing new rules to stop this happening in the future.

However, given O2's intransigence on this matter, using the Small Claims procedure against the service provider is likely to give a speedier resolution.

[TallTrees]

Hello @Mins 

Pursue this until you get your money back.  These despicable scammers are a scourge and hopefully their time is limited.

It is a very painful event and trying to get your money back is also painful but there is advice (been given by our Community) here on the forum. 

Good luck and let us know how things go for you.  TallTrees

[Robbos21]

Best way and even quicker is go to your bank and tell them whats happened and they will get you money back soon as. You didn't authorise the payments so go tell them or give your banking team a cal as will sort it out within 2 days, I had same problem wit the 3 network so went bank and told them not authorised and company not do anything about it..

[Payforit_Sucks]

@Robbos21 

Its certainly true that Banks will reverse transactions, unlike O2. However be in no doubt that O2 will trash your credit score if you don't pay their bill in full!

O2 claim that these transactions are between you and the "third party merchant". If that were the case you'd think they'd refund the transaction and tell the merchant to sue you for what they claim you owe.

However be in no doubt that O2 will doggedly pursue any debt even if the result of payforit fraud. Unless the amounts involved are large it probably isn't worth it.

[OTwoCustomer]

Hi, I've recently dealt with a similar situation, and managed to get a full refund two weeks and a bunch of emails later. There's been £70 worth of charges on my O2 bill over the course of several months. 

O2 said they couldn't do anything about that as there is a certain loophole such 'gaming' companies are taking advantage of. I've learnt that you can 'subscribe' to the gaming service by clicking 'Accept' on what looks like a cookies accept button when browsing the internet, by accidentally clicking on a link on a random pop up window, or by even clicking on a little cross trying to close a pop up window.

Based on a friend's experience, contacting your bank and trying to reclaim the amount of additional charges from the O2 won't help, as O2 will treat it as you not paying their bills and this will negatively affect your credit score.

Here're the steps I had to take to get a full refund. Hope someone will find this information useful.

1) Texted a stop message to the number mentioned in the texts you're getting charge updates from (STOP or STOP GAMERS depending on what the messages sent to you said).

2) Called O2 and asked to enable a Premium bar on my account to prevent similar subscriptions in the future, asked O2 for the contact email address and phone number of the company the charges are coming from.

3) Emailed the provided email address (for me it was customer.service@tap2bill.com).

4) Got a response saying that I need contact Stripey Giraffe directly - help@stripeygiraffe.co.uk, so I emailed them.

5) Got an email from claims@telcosupport.com, 'an independent helpdesk that resolves customer complaints on behalf of SB7 Mobile Limited (UK)' asking to submit the refund claim online and attach the phone bills affected. Submitted the claim.

6) Got a long formal BS template email from claims@telcosupport.com detailing how the company was operating within the law, how I must not have paid attention when subscribing, and how I may not know who else might have access to my phone and was playing their games on my phone. In that email they offered 'a good will refund' of 50% of the charges and provided a link that expires within several days.

7) Didn't use the refund link, but called SB7 Mobile Limited (UK) on 0330 134 0181 instead and said that if they refuse to give me a full refund, I was willing to take the matters to court. I asked to provide the following information for my court claim (as it appears at the Companies House): Company Name, Company Registered Address, Company Number, Company Phone and Email. They are legally obliged to provide this information. At that point the advisor said they would give me a full refund if I email my query and the affected phone bills to psa-gwrefunds@sb7mobile.com

😎 Emailed the query, got the same template email as in Point 6, but stating that the full refund will be issued.

A few notes I made in my email, that may be quite important while claiming the refund:

- I haven't knowingly subscribed to the company's services

- The company didn't make it clear that the charges would be added to my phone bill

- The company didn't make it clear that it was subscribing me to regular charges

- I've never accessed the game and never played it

It's a disgrace O2 allows such scam to happen to their customers, I'd been an EE customer for 9 years before and nothing like this ever affected me. From what I read, other networks have better measures of preventing such scams in place including two-step verification. I will seriously consider switching to another network when my contract with O2 expires. 

Cheers & Good luck!

[Zee]

Got charged a total of £60 by Strippey giraffe. Had never even heard of them before. Been having an awful time of life and watching my phone bill wasn't a priority. So upset. Last thing I need.