Send these phone pests to Coventry. . .
Probes a world of scams and scandals
P.D. writes: I recently received a mobile phone text, saying: ‘FreeMsg, you are subscribed to 4 Your Eyes Only for £3 per week until you send STOP to 80008.’ There was also a helpline number and email address for a company called Syncronized Limited. I texted STOP, for which I was charged, and followed this up with an email and phone call. I asked on what authority I had been signed up and what gave the company the right to charge for something I had no knowledge of. A young lady said I would be contacted within three days, but this did not happen. I called again with the same result. I wonder how they were able to set up a charge without the phone user’s permission. SYNCRONIZED Limited, based in Coventry, has operated various services providing sexual content to mobile phone users. The titles of some are unprintable. Others include ‘Glam Pleasures’, ‘Sex Dose’ and ‘Lesbiancourse’ offering explicit videos.
None of this is illegal, but it does not allow Syncronized to charge for services people did not request – and the company has form for this.
In 2013, the watchdog PhonepayPlus revealed that it had investigated 58 complaints against Syncronized, many of them from people who said they were charged for a service they knew nothing about and did not want.
It is technically simple for a company to send messages that land the mobile phone user with a bill, but rules say the sender must have ‘robust evidence’ that the consumer agreed in advance.
Syncronized failed to come up with the evidence and was fined £90,000.
The company promised it would not bill people again without proof they had consented – but in December 2014 it was back before the PhonepayPlus Tribunal for exactly the same offence.
This time there was even evidence from the anti-virus company Kaspersky Labs that a concealed download had landed on mobile phones that made it look as if owners had clicked to subscribe when in fact they had not.
Syncronized was fined £120,000 and ordered to hire an approved outside firm to check its procedures. Yet none of this seems to have worked.
You are far from being the only person to have complained in the past few months and the Phone-paid Services Authority – the new name for PhonepayPlus – told me: ‘We have received complaints about Syncronized and we are looking into the matter.’ Anyone receiving dubious services charged to their phone bill can trace the provider by using the watchdog’s online number checker at psauthority.org.uk.
According to company records, Syncronized is owned and run by a 33-year-old Polish woman named Alina Turek. She did not respond to repeated invitations to comment and a woman at the company’s Coventry offices told me she was not there.
She explained: ‘We don’t really have much to do with the management of the company. We are a support centre.’
Her job was to take messages from people who wanted their mobile number removed from Syncronized’s systems. She sounded as though this kept her busy.
When Phone-paid Services completes its investigation and reaches a verdict, I will report it. Meanwhile, anyone whose complaint is not settled by Syncronized should contact the authority on 0300 30 300 20 and add to the evidence.