Phantom subscriptions lurking on your phone bill
Thousands of mobile users are unwittingly clicking on to sites that commit them to monthly fees
AT some point on october 15, 2015, possibly in the dead of night while waiting for my then one-year-old to go back to sleep, two clicks on my mobile phone cost me £615.
Though I have zero recollection, while browsing the internet on that date (a memorable one, it was my birthday), I’d apparently gravitated towards a healthrelated pop-up ad and clicked on it.
With a brace of clicks, I unwittingly subscribed to a diet-and-exercise app called iFitness, which began charging me £12 a month, via my ee mobile bill.
Last september I visited my local ee branch to query something else on my bill. After browsing through it, a staff member quizzed me on a £12 regular payment that fell outside of ‘my plan’. eyebrows raised, I saw it was attributed to ‘services from other companies’.
Neither he nor I knew what it might be. A call to ee customer services explained that, since 2015, I’d been paying £ 12 to £ 15 a month to Birmingham-based Pm Connect, which owns mobile apps including iFitness.
I cancelled the subscription and left in bemused fury. Thumbing through my phone bills at home, I found iFitness and that £12. I had no idea one could pay for such subscriptions via a phone.
even so, how had I failed to notice for that long? I travel a lot for work and, in truth, when scrutinising my bill, I’d focus on expensive foreign calls.
As a time-poor, working mum-of-two, I was certainly guilty of occasionally just looking at the overall cost; £40? Fine.
In fairness, iFitness had been contacting me throughout to let me know I was a subscriber. monthly, often at around 7am, I’d get a text message. It began: ‘Freemsg: U r subscribed to iFitness.’
With PPI calls rife then and spam messages an ongoing annoyance, I dismissed the texts. I’d see the word ‘Freemsg’ and hit delete.
The Phone-paid services Authority (PsA) says it has received around 2,500 complaints about Pm Connect in the past two years. WheN
you type the name into Google, two types of content come back. The first offers glowing accounts of its Ceo, James macfarlane, 31, an award-winning mobile entrepreneur who turns over around £20 milliona-year from modest midlands offices.
many of the remaining results take a murkier tone; the words ‘iFitness scam’, ‘ Pm Connect rip- off ’ and a Trustpilot rating of two out of five loom large.
Dig deeper into forums dedicated to third-party charges, and consumers rage about being signed up covertly, with others claiming they struggled to get money back, or were fobbed off with a partial refund until, in some cases, legal action was threatened.
so, how did I fare? I spoke again to ee customer services, who were clear grievances over third- party charges lay with the company providing the subscription.
Indeed, I was given the mobile communications equivalent of a Gallic shrug, an exasperated voice at the end of the line sighing: ‘I’ve worked here for 19 years; I’ve never known ee to offer a refund or compensation over third-party charges.’
Dialling the Pm Connect helpline, a chirpy recorded voice asks you to hold. When you get through, you are told to email your complaint.
But I need not have worried. I received a full refund of £615 two days after emailing them. Pm Connect was aware I’m a Daily mail journalist. The company didn’t divulge how I’d subscribed.
A spokesman said: ‘This complaint was resolved within hours of mrs Tweedy contacting our customer service team, with mrs Tweedy instantly accepting a discretionary refund offered as a gesture of goodwill.’
he added: ‘mrs Tweedy had been sent 49 sms messages by Pm Connect to remind her of her subscription. mrs Tweedy had a clear option to cancel at any time via our 24/7 customer service line or by texting Stop in response to these reminders.’
Going forward, there is good and bad news. Regulations around third- party charges became tighter on November 1, 2019. Prior to that, customers would need to click only twice to confirm subscription consent.
Now, says the PSA, a two-stage sign-up process is required. The first requires an ‘opt-in’ using a PIN, account and password, or an sms from a consumer’s mobile. This is followed by a second opt-in, via a confirmation button, another sms, or biometrics (such as a fingerprint).
Complaints to the PSA have already dropped by around two-thirds since the change. And ee, which introduced similar regulations in February 2018, says complaints about accidental sign- ups have ‘almost disappeared’.
But for anyone who signed up without realising, the onus is still very much on them to check their bills and cancel any subscriptions.
A PSA spokesman says: ‘There may be consumers who are signed up to existing subscriptions they don’t know about.
‘our advice would be to check your phone bill regularly because these items will be identified on it. If you see a “stop” reminder or a text message you don’t know, don’t ignore it.’