Alarming figures reveal 44% rise in victims as... The plague of scam texts is spreading
COMPLAINTS about rip-off mobile phone text scams have soared by 44 per cent in just six months, alarming new figures have revealed. Thousands of people are caught out by surprise charges on their mobile phone bills every month. Spurious companies are charging customers up to £4.50 per text message – via their mobile phone bills – for useless and unsolicited subscriptions to services such as quizzes, competitions or money-saving deals.
Victims are supposed to have signed up using their smartphones, but many are in the dark about how the charges have been triggered.
The Phone-paid Services Authority – the regulator for premium services charged to a phone bill – is fielding thousands of complaints a month from angry consumers who say they never gave consent to be charged.
The most recent figures show complaints between the first and second half of 2018 soared by more than twofifths (44 per cent) to 6,700. These figures only relate to those who knew to complain to the regulator and took the time to do so.
Many more will have complained to their mobile networks and gone no further. Others may not even know they have been affected until they spot the small, but regular charges on their bills. For more than a year, The Mail on Sunday has repeatedly highlighted the blight of rip-off texts – and readers continue to come forward to describe their experiences.
They include one person paying for texts from an unknown company based in Cyprus and a grandmother being charged for a text-based subscription service despite never using the internet on her phone. Customers’ experiences all follow the same pattern. They do not know how they came to receive the messages, deny ever signing up to a service and have no use for the messages. Meanwhile, the companies behind them remain cloaked in secrecy.
Mobile networks often allow the charges to be added to bills via the ‘Payforit’ platform – owned by Three, EE, O2 and Vodafone.
When customers complain to their mobile networks, they are routinely redirected to contact the ‘service providers’. Often these companies are based overseas with contact only possible via a general email address from which replies are not always forthcoming.
When a response is generated, customers are usually told no refund will be issued because they willingly signed up and agreed to the terms and conditions.
Elaine Cottam, 64, was charged £4.50 each for three texts from a provider she had never heard of. She only noticed the additional payments when querying charges for phone use abroad.
The married retiree, from Cleveleys in Lancashire, says she is ‘appalled’ at how easy it was for the company to take her money.
Elaine was unaware what the text service was even for. She contacted her network, Three, which pointed her towards a Cyprus-based company called Panadema.
A spokeswoman at Three says Elaine signed up to a ‘money-off alerts’ service.
But the ‘service’ simply provided links to deals on the popular VoucherCodes website, including money off shoes and pizzas. Deals on the VoucherCodes website, which is not linked to the service, can be accessed and searched easily for free.
Three’s spokeswoman adds: ‘The online advert clearly stated the service would cost £4.50 per message. The customer contacted us to query the charges, and we were happy to provide a credit of £20 as a goodwill gesture.
‘We also placed a cap on her account so that she would no longer be able to send or receive premium rate text messages.’
Elaine says: ‘Whatever the advert was I cannot remember seeing it, and no way would I have willingly signed up to this.’
Meanwhile, 73-year-old grandmother Pauline only spotted charges on her bill after reading about scam texts in The Mail on Sunday.
She says: ‘Thank goodness I read the article because I have been charged twice. I did not agree to anything and don’t know how they got my number. This is a terrible practice.’
Pauline has never used the internet on her phone and is on a pay-as-you-go tariff, only using it to stay in touch with her family.
She contacted her mobile network, which has now blocked any further charges from premium rate services.
Most customers affected by scam texts discover after much frustration that offending companies are not answerable to anyone, unless enough people complain. This then triggers an investigation by the regulator.
After raising a dispute with the company and being rejected, customers can only then hope that their mobile phone operator will reimburse them. Unfortunately, mobile networks do not always play ball.
As a result of the surge in complaints, the regulator is now looking at tighter rules to tackle the issue. It says more than 95 per cent of complaints it receives are about text subscriptions and that some services are ‘causing significant harm to consumers’.
Only last week the regulator issued its latest fine – a £375,000 penalty – to subscription provider Best VIP Games for misleading consumers.
Incoming reforms could include a ‘two-factor authentication’ process before payment is taken.
Customers who sign up would have a PIN sent to their mobiles, which they then confirm with the service provider.
A spokesman for the Phonepaid Services Authority says: ‘We’re proposing new requirements that we hope will make it clearer for consumers what they are paying for and how, and prevent them from being charged without their consent.’
To find out which company is behind a premium rate text message – usually from a five-digit shortcode number – use the ‘service checker’ tool at psauthority.org.uk.
From here you can also find further details about the regulator’s consultation on new rules, which closes on April 16. Have you been charged for a ripoff text? Email personalfinance@ mailonsunday.co.uk.