Slightly off-topic, but a warning to Orange customers

[Guest steve_smith]

Hi,

Slightly off topic, but have any Orange customers received a text from a company called comuk.net (number 87092)?

I got one recently (it's a junk text about SMS services), and was shocked to find Orange charged me £1.50 on this months bill to *receive* it.

Orange customer services don't care, and told me to contact the company who sent the message resolve the problem (yeah right). They also said that there's nothing they can do to prevent it happening in the future.

My feeling is the mobile operators should do more to protect their customers from this kind of problem. OK, it's happened to me once, but what happens when every man and his dog picks up on the idea and you get several a day?

More on topic, does anyone know if you can do something to the settings on the C500 to stop it picking up messages which are going to cost the recipient money?

Steve.

[Guest element]

Oh dear, hope I dont get it, my bill is gonna be big enough this month as it is...

[Guest steve_smith]

Just an updated.

I emailed them and complained.

The reply suggest that it's some kind of information service you have to subscribe to and that perhaps someone used my mobile phone number to gain information from them without having to pay.

Well, I guess it's possible, but I never signed up for it, and only a handful of people (who I trust) have the number. So unless someone just picked it at random our the air...

However, they have offered to refund my £1.50.

Not sure what to believe to be honest, but I have Googled the number and seen that I'm not the only person to have been charged to receive texts from these people. Strikes me that when a mobile phone number is involved, they should have a simple checking procedure in place to make sure the information they have is valid (ie. sending a free of charge text to the same number, and only subscribing someone after receiving a reply to that text).

Steve.

[Guest Confucious]

I had a phone with T-Mobile and was suprised to find I had been charged for receiving some SPAM SMS's. They insisted I must have agreed to them at somne time (It is possible -an unchecked tick box that should have been checked or vice versa). I told them I didn't want any more and they blocked my phone from receiving any mor SMSs that the recipient has to pay for. If they can do it I'm sure Orange can but these scams should be stopped.

[Guest steve_smith]

I told them I didn't want any more and they blocked my phone from receiving any mor SMSs that the recipient has to pay for. If they can do it I'm sure Orange can but these scams should be stopped.

I asked Orange this very question, and they said it wasn't possible. Like when I asked them to please stop their "premier" dealers from ringing me offering me free upgrades when I've only been a customer for a couple of months (it has happened at least once a month since I've been a customer). I've had a lot of customer service issues with Orange, have written them lengthily complaint and shall be taking my unlocked C500 elsewhere as soon as my contract period has expired :lol:

[Guest actualliam]

you wanna hear this!!

i work in a mobile phone shop....a man entered the shop saying he had had the phone for only 2 months but his bill was an astranomical £1500!!!!

he wasnt happy.....

we said, give us your bill and your phone and come back in an hour.....once he left the shop, we soon realised that all the items on the bill were data messages, all from 87*** numbers, so we thought what could these be??

we checked them out, we needed a mobile to check them out on, our orange SPV C500 demo phone suited that purpose! (this phone was free to the shop, could only send and receive txt's and was paid for completely by orange)

once we sent one message we got one back from a clearly sexually frustrated lady who wanted to do many lovely things to me and my work colleague! basically the guy had been having hours and hours of txt sex, costing him 1.50 a txt! (in total 48 hours of data texts were sent from his phone!! thats a lot of making love to himself!)

this all started as he sent one text away and then got several hundred back.

You DO have to subscribe to these texts first before they can charge you, so at some point you have to send a message to these bastard text companies!

What i suggest is dont pay for anything apart from your phone bill, so what if you dont have the latest Girl's Aloud monophonic single on your phone, the idiot that has is now paying £1.50 per ringtone 7 times a day

Fool

[Guest steve_smith]

You DO have to subscribe to these texts first before they can charge you, so at some point you have to send a message to these bastard text companies!

Interesting.

Well, I never subscribed to anything. The only place online I ever typed in my mobile number was the link frequently mentioned on here when the C500 came out for decerting the phone (ie. so you can install software and home screens). I doubt that could have signed me up for anything? Besides, I presume many people on here will have used that same URL?

I've certainly never used my phone to sign up for anything by text. The first text I received from them was the one that cost me £1.50.

I bought my phone for making/receiving calls and sending/receiving emails (plus the other nice things the C500 can do like playing MP3s, surfing the web and watching episodes of Southpark on the train).

I hardly even use text. When you have email, it seems a bit pointless... Especially all these rip off expensive text "services"... can't believe there are so many people out there willing pay £3 or £4 a time to receive a collection of bleeps which bear a slight resemblance to a Britney Spears song 8)

Since you work in a phone shop, is it true that Orange can't block these texts from arriving at your phone? I presume Orange take a cut of the money, which might explain their reluctance to protect their customers.

The "oh no, we can't do that" attitude every time I phone or email customer services really knacks me off, and if I could cancel my contract I would

Oh no, we can't stop our dealers calling you to offer you an upgrade you can't even have yet. Oh no, we can't tell you how much of your GPRS allowance you have used until it's too late, and Oh no, we can't stop people emptying your bank account by sending text messages to you.

The only good bit about my Orange experience so far has been the handset itself, and I guess that will work on another providers network once the 12 months are up :lol:

Steve.

[Guest drblow]

steve_smith =D> =D> =D>

Good point, well made! :wink:

[Guest djleekee]

I received the same text message tonight from 87092 www.comuk.net

The text read :-

"SMS SERVICES. for your inclusive text credits, pls goto www.comuk.net login=xxxxx unsubscribe with STOP, no extra charge. help 08702840625 COMUK.220-CM2 9AE."

Website details are:-

"Registrant:

comuk

220 New London Road

Chelmsford, CM2 9AE

UK

Domain name: COMUK.NET

Administrative Contact:

., comuk [email protected]

220 New London Road

Chelmsford, CM2 9AE

UK

+44 (0)870 284 0625

Technical Contact:

., comuk [email protected]

220 New London Road

Chelmsford, CM2 9AE

UK

+44 (0)870 284 0625"

I have emailed them for a full response and refund! Ill post the reply soon!

DJ Leekee

www.djleekee.com

[Guest djleekee]

This is the reply I have just received:-

Dear Mr Smith,

We are sorry to hear that you received premium SMS messages from us that you do not recall subscribing to. We only send premium SMS messages to opted-in subscribed numbers (all numbers in our active database are numbers which were actively subscribed to receive premium rate SMS at a cost of £1.50 per SMS, offering privileged non-public information and/or services. This particular service is giving you 20 SMS credits when you register at our website). The subscribers subscribed at one of our affiliate websites (and not directly through the mobile phone handset via an SMS) and post sign-up, an SMS is sent to the number - asking the recipient to reply back with STOP to cancel the subscription. At the point of subscription, the Terms & Conditions are very clear and the subscriber is told that they may receive premium SMS offering other similar services from affiliate companies in the future. This is exactly what we are doing and our activities are fully covered by the T&C's and by ICSTIS Code Of Practice V10 and the relevant guidelines - and by the Network Operators guidelines.  

However, we are aware that some subscribers have had their mobile phones and/or just their numbers intentionally or unintentionally used by family, friends, colleagues or employees - or even by persons unknown to them (who know the mobile numbers), to register for the use of various premium web & print based services (because the subscription allowed access to privileged on-line services) and in doing so, they have been unwittingly subscribed to privileged information services managed by us and our affiliated companies throughout the world. In some cases where the phone is not in their possession, the actual owners of these are not aware of such subscriptions. In other cases where the phone is in possession of its legitimate owner, when a post sign-up SMS was sent to them - they did not realise what it was (most probably considered it as spam) and deleted it.  

In this particular instance, it maybe the case that your number itself may have been used without your knowledge or consent by a third party who are unknown and unconnected to us, to subscribe to our services. If the phone was not in your possession, then you would not have seen the post sign-up SMS and if it was, you most probably deleted it without realising what it was. For this reason, we ask that you give us your mobile number so that we can delete it immediately from our subscriber database - or if you do not wish to do that, then we ask that you send the message STOP to number 87092 (you will not be charged by us for this - but your Network may charge you a standard SMS fee according to your service plan) and to notify us once you've done that - and we of course, offer you a full refund.  

Please bear in mind that we do not become aware of these situations until the actual owner of the number complains to us. Invariably, the complainant assumes we sent them an unsolicited SMS and thus makes a complaint based on this. However, this represent a very tiny proportion of our subscribers - the vast majority of whom are fully aware of their subscription and are perfectly happy with our service.  

Please understand that we cannot be held responsible if a particular number is used to register for our premium SMS service without the actual owners consent as it is impossible for us to verify the ownership of a number at the point of subscription (without calling them - and this would be impractical) and we are not able to control who subscribes to our services and what mobile number they use to do so. Having said this - please be assured that you will not receive any more SMS (premium or otherwise) from us again. Please can you provide us with an address to which a re-imbursement can be made and we will make sure it is effected immediately. Many thanks.

Best wishes,  

Tom Carter  

Customer Support  

SMS SERVICES

www.comuk.net

TEL:  +44 (0)870 284 0625  

[Guest steve_smith]

This is the reply I have just received:-

The same initial reply as I got, word for word as far as I can see.

Well, I'm pleased to say I got a cheque in the post for £3 this morning.

The money wasn't really the point, it was the more case that it could even happen in the first place, and that Orange have no measures in place to give their customers the option to opt out from receiving premium texts.

Orange's argument was that the regulations say that you can only be charged for a service you have subscribed to, so I must have subscribed to it. Well, I didn't subscribe to anything... I'm sure the law says that people can't break in to your house. But does it stop it happening?

Not that I am calling this particular company scammers, but if this mechanism of collecting money doesn't bother Orange, I wonder how long it will be before a lot of fly-by-night companies realise that they can start spamming our phones with premium texts, sit back and collect the money until a significant amount of people complain, and then do a runner?

Steve.

[Guest blackhorse]

Bottom line is, if you ever get one of these texts and your adament youve never asked for them.

Phone CS and ask who the company is by giving them the 5 digit number.

Call this company and basically say unless you can show to me and proove to me ive ever asked for this service in any way wether it be text or phone call.

A full refund is generally given id say 99% of the time normally in the form of more texts but at reverse charge.

[Guest djleekee]

Lets hope I receive my cheque soon.

PS Ive just noticed that my off-topic rating has raised to '1'

Is there any way of finding out where and why you gained that rating?

DJ Leekee

www.djleekee.com

[Guest martin]

PS Ive just noticed that my off-topic rating has raised to '1'. Is there any way of finding out where and why you gained that rating?

Yep just do search and enter your name as author and change the category to off topic :lol:

[Guest djleekee]

I have now received my cheque for £2 - still no explanation in an email detailing how they got my number - even though this was requested and is more important than recieving the cash back!

PS Ive searched "djleekee" in off-topic and it doesnt come up with any results! OHWELL

DJ Leekee

[Guest Confucious]

PS Ive searched "djleekee" in off-topic and it doesnt come up with any results! OHWELL

DJ Leekee

Was this posted so we'd search and find the post saying how many hhit's you've had on you're site? :)

[Guest djleekee]

Was this posted so we'd http://smartphone.modaco.com/search.php>Search and find the post saying how many hhit's you've had on you're site? :)

Eh? I thought the search only performed a search within the forum?

DJ Leekee

[Guest Confucious]

It does, try clicking on your name, then searching for all posts by this user and looking for the one in Off topic.

Unfortunately the search feature of this forum does not always function properly!

[Guest Cabana]

I'm so glad that AT&T has free incoming SMS - I don't like the idea of companies charging to receive them. I think Verizon does this along with some others here in the US.

[Guest Confucious]

Normal incoming SMSs are free in the UK it's only some "Premium" service SMSs which are charged for and in theory you are supposed to soecifically ask for and agree to be charhged for them. As we have seen though, this is not always the case.

[Guest Cabana]

Ah, well some carriers in the US don't even give you free incoming which seems like a total ripoff to me.

[Guest Confucious]

Having to pay to receive things is a major drawback. How can you control what you are sent? Thank the gods we don't have to pay to receive things in the UK. I believe in The US you used to have to pay to receive calls at one time, is that still the case?

[Guest blackhorse]

Orange, T-Mobile, Voda, O2 and 3 have teamed up to create some parent control program ill give you details in the morn

[Guest Nos]

You DO have to subscribe to these texts first before they can charge you, so at some point you have to send a message to these bastard text companies!

This isn't strictly true, there are some of these premium rate text companies that have spam bots running through number ranges sending premium sms.

They also tend to change their name and contact details every other month so people can't keep track of them long enough to get their money back, absolute crooks if you ask me.

[Guest Cabana]

I believe in The US you used to have to pay to receive calls at one time, is that still the case?

Incoming calls do count against our monthly allotment of minutes, but most plans have unlimited minutes at night and on weekends.