giffgaff = con-con
in [UK Mobile]
|
From: MikeT on 17 Mar 2010 11:07 On Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:21:07 +0000, Martin Jay wrote in <news:817.1268835669.20100317(a)spam-free.org.uk> > And now con-con giffgaff have locked the thread I started on their > forum. It's been marked as "Too Hot." :) > > It's here: > <http://community.giffgaff.com/t5/Help-Ask-the-community-got-stuck/giffgaff-con-con/td-p/6538>. > > I wonder if they'll delete it. The short code in question belongs to this company - PlanetCalling.com http://www.planetcalling.com/terms.html
From: Martin Jay on 17 Mar 2010 11:14 On Wed, 17 Mar 2010 07:36:08 -0700 (PDT), andy <andy.ggrps(a)googlemail.com> wrote: >It's been locked because it isn't going anywhere and has become >repetitive, partly due to your adamant refusal of all offers of help > >When it reaches the point where someone asks you if you even read the >middle sentence in a post consisting of 3 sentences, and your perverse >reply saysyou mean this one, but quoting and responding to a >different one, it's become obvious that you are being obtuse for the >sake of it That's not really what happened. The middle sentence in the original message differed from the middle sentence in the quote. I simply asked for clarification, which doesn't seem unreasonable to me. >giffgaff staff have publicly offered to help you with this Yes, and I've asked for that help THREE times... "I have not subscribed to any premium rate text services. If you believe otherwise, I'd be grateful if you would let me know when and how I did so." And I'm still waiting for their response. >Forum members have several times given advice on how to deal wih this, >including contact details for Phonepayplus and the number provider Oh, and some company in Manchester. Yep, they advised me to contact anyone except con-con giffgaff, which is the company who charged me for the premium rate text message and the company I have a contract with. >Any public statement you make to the contrary, such as your paranoid >whine that nobody is interested in helping with the issue, is >blatantly untrue Oh well, it's all here: <http://community.giffgaff.com/t5/Help-Ask-the-community-got-stuck/giffgaff-con-con/td-p/6538>. Some time ago two charges for GBP30 appeared on my credit card statement - T-Mobile top-ups. At the time I didn't even have a T-Mobile PAYG SIM. I contacted my credit card company about it, they sent me a form to complete and I received a full refund. That was that. They didn't expect me to go chasing T-Mobile for a refund or complain to some other third party. -- Martin Jay Back the Ban: <http://www.backtheban.com/> League Against Cruel Sports: <http://www.league.org.uk/>
From: Martin Jay on 17 Mar 2010 11:25 On Tue, 16 Mar 2010 21:18:11 +0000, Martin Jay <martin(a)spam-free.org.uk> wrote: >Well, well, well. Despite all it's community based fully charm, >giffgaff is just another con. I've just received this message from con-con giffgaff: ----- Begin Quote ----- Hi again Martin, These services can be subscribed to in a number of ways other than by direct call or SMS and although I requested your call records to be checked this is by no way confirmation of whether you did or didn't request this subscription. Based solely on you call records there is no history of you requesting this service via either of these methods, however I have dug a little further and can tell you that you can subscribe to this specific premium text service via their website which I've attached a link to below: http://www.planetcalling.com/ I'm sure if you hadn't requested this service then someone else with your details may have however only your SIM would have received these notification texts of which there were 2, the details of which I've attached below: 11-03-2010 20:30:30 00089582023 SMS Inbound Off �5.00 25-02-2010 20:30:21 00089582023 SMS Inbound Off �5.00 I really hope this helps you get to the bottom of this and that you get a full refund from the party in question and again I want to reassure you that I will continue to help you with any information I can however I must stress that this issue is not in any way a result of giffgaff's doing. Cheers, Simon @ The giffgaff team ----- End Quote ----- So, that's confirmation from con-con giffgaff that they have no record of my subscribing to the premium rate SMS service, despite their earlier insistence that it must have been done from my SIM. I find this particular part of their response worrying: "...I have dug a little further and can tell you that you can subscribe to this specific premium text service via their website..." So, apart from network SMS barring, such as that offered by T-Mobile and others, there's no protection against being charged for receiving premium rate SMS. According to con-con giffgaff someone can just pop off to a website, enter your number, and you get charged. Nice. -- Martin Jay Back the Ban: <http://www.backtheban.com/> League Against Cruel Sports: <http://www.league.org.uk/>
From: Theo Markettos on 17 Mar 2010 13:47 Martin Jay <martin(a)spam-free.org.uk> wrote: > I find this particular part of their response worrying: "...I have dug > a little further and can tell you that you can subscribe to this > specific premium text service via their website..." > > So, apart from network SMS barring, such as that offered by T-Mobile > and others, there's no protection against being charged for receiving > premium rate SMS. According to con-con giffgaff someone can just pop > off to a website, enter your number, and you get charged. Nice. Interesting. Based on my very limited experience of the industry, that looks like an assumptions failure on the part of the telco billing model. Back in the day, if CableTel or Mercury told BT that you'd been billed for something, either it would be right or CableTel/Mercury made a mistake. You'd complain to BT and BT would either investigate or write it off as being too small to care about. If someone like Mercury made large-scale mistakes, their business would lose customers very fast. But now anyone who can string a PC and an internet connection together can be their own telco. The billing system was designed when trustworthy telcos exchanged traffic, but now anyone can be a telco they're automatically trusted. With an apparent lack of authentication, the only regulation is after-the-fact. And if someone can get away with enough cash before they're busted, they can win. This is quite different from other billing systems like credit cards, where the onus is on the merchant to prove that the transaction really took place. Theo
From: Nicola Redwood on 17 Mar 2010 16:53
Whenever this has happened to me, I've contacted the number provider, planetcalling.com in your case and I've received a refund Grumbletext is quite useful when it comes to these matters http://www.grumbletext.co.uk/viewforum.php?f=2 |