@vodafoneuk Vodafone premium SMS via MiraGames - £360!!

[lyonzy1]

Im looking for advice on what i can do next as im lost and just going round in circles.

 

In october we noticed that for a £20.00 Sim only deal with vodafone the bills were coming in considerably high and occured a few bank charges because of this, We then proceeded to ask Vodafone to supply a full itemised bill so this could be investigated. It turns out that 3 x £30 were been taken from the account per month from September 2015 to December 2015 by a company using premium rate messages by the name of MiraGames.

 

We began to query this with vodafone and was promised a full investigation would go ahead. So over the coming weeks we called & called with many mixed responses. Some would say they were passing it to a more senior manager, Some were saying its tough its your own fault.

 

We then finally got a response in January to say they would offer us £100 back of the £360 we were owed. I stated that i will not be accepting anything less than the FULL amount as this was no fault of ours and we had never opted into any subscription service nor did we know this company.

 

So then we were told to contact payphoneplus, In which we did but again just taken round in circles with the whole thing - Receiving this email quoted as a final reply;

 

 

 

I write in reference to your complaint relating to the Payforit service operated by Boku Network Services UK, Ltd.

 

PhonepayPlus is already aware of the service that you have complained about.

I write to advise you that prior to receiving your complaint, PhonepayPlus has undertaken a review of the service including assessing consumer complaints received and intelligence gathered through internal monitoring and research.

 

 

Having considered the information gathered PhonepayPlus, in line with the rules and regulations set out by us, concluded that it did not have sufficient evidence of non-compliance at that time.

 

 

Accordingly, PhonepayPlus has allocated this service to what we refer to as a “Service review”.

This means that the service will be periodically reviewed to ensure that we are still happy with the assessment that was made and to determine whether any issues of non-compliance have arisen.

 

 

Therefore it is our decision that no further regulatory action will be taken at this stage .

 

If new evidence comes to light or should the service require further investigation at a later date PhonepayPlus may revisit your complaint. If there is any additional and new information relevant to the case that you would like to share with PhonepayPlus please contact us.

The decision to close your complaint does not affect your consumer rights. In this instance, you may wish to contact the provider of the service to discuss the possibility of a refund.

 

by this point it gets very frustrating.

we then went on to contact the ombudsman who deals with vodafone,

Only to be told they cannot deal with this matter.

 

What do i do?

How do i go about getting back this money?

 

Ive posted on Miragame forum,

Ive emailed them ,

ive emailed payphoneplus and

ive contacted the ombudsman but nobody seems to want to help.

 

 

I refuse to give up,

I do not wish to lose £360 of my hard earned money

and do not believe they should be able to just ignore me as such.

 

 

When i 1st placed my claim i was assured by a couple of advisors i would receive a full refund.

 

Please help me if you can

 

Thanks

Edited March 9, 2016 by lyonzy1

[dx100uk]

were these separate payment taken directly from you bank account?

or are they added into the sum voda take from your bank?

[lyonzy1]

They were 3 x £30 amounts taken per month from my vodafone account

 

So it would display

 

MiraGames - £30.00

 

3 times per monthly statement

 

Then vodafone would take the direct debit from my bank at the end of the month. I actually cancelled the direct debit in december when they continued to bill me for these messages

 

Im just stuck now and dont have a clue what to do as nobody wants to accept liability ive even told vodafone to check my outgoing messages to prove a subscription was never activated.

[maroondevo52]

I had something similar with EE when the payments were taken from my d/d to them, they refunded all monies taken.

[lyonzy1]

Well nobody wants to accept liabilty nor refund any money even though ive had numerous customer service advisors state i would be refunded. I just dont know where to turn anymore.

[maroondevo52]

I would say whoever is taking the payments is responsible, Vodafone.

How you go about getting it refunded I'm not sure.

[lyonzy1]

I would say that too, But they say they didnt take the payment, Even though phonepayplus confirm they receive a % of the profits.

 

Anyone can shed light on this and help be much appreciated because im tired with it

[martin2006]

I will try and shed what light on this i can from my experience working for a major mobile provider in customer services.

 

i am guessing you have an android handset as the payments were processed by payforit? Payforit are a bit like payapl, they simply process payments for purchases/subscriptions through your mobile.

 

At some point, whether yourself or not, somebody with access to your phone will have downloaded a game from miragames via google playstore, within the app/game is a subscription that sends you premium rate text messages charged at upto £30 a time per message. The messages come from a 5 digit number, say 66766. (Example number) Payforit processes the payment on behalf of miragames and charges your mobile account, vodafone in this case and you pay it through your mobile bill.

 

The 5 digit codes you will have seen before, itv shows use them all the time, voting on X Factor for example, that daft question on This Morning that even a 2 yr old could answer, all designed to get you to text to it, you pay the charge but are subscribed to receiving further texts at whatever cost per message received.

 

Once subscribed, and it could be as simple as not unticking a box during installation, or maybe your son/daughter not realising that they are subscribing to receive the premium rate messages. This does happen very often, many parents allow their kids to "go on their phone" without understanding the implications.

 

The only way to stop being charged for them is to opt out by sending the words "STOP" or "STOP ALL" to the 5 digit code the messages come from. If you dont, the charges will keep coming till you do.

 

Insist that you never agreed to any such subscription, dont for gods sake tell them it may have been the kids, if you stand your ground you can get them refunded.

[dx100uk]

great post!

dx

[martin2006]

Just to add a question for the OP, the amount is £360 and you say there were 3 x £30 per bill so thats £90 per bill, 4 months bills?

 

Did you query the first of these bills or was it not until the 4th bill?

[lyonzy1]

I will try and shed what light on this i can from my experience working for a major mobile provider in customer services.

 

i am guessing you have an android handset as the payments were processed by payforit? Payforit are a bit like payapl, they simply process payments for purchases/subscriptions through your mobile.

 

At some point, whether yourself or not, somebody with access to your phone will have downloaded a game from miragames via google playstore, within the app/game is a subscription that sends you premium rate text messages charged at upto £30 a time per message. The messages come from a 5 digit number, say 66766. (Example number) Payforit processes the payment on behalf of miragames and charges your mobile account, vodafone in this case and you pay it through your mobile bill.

 

The 5 digit codes you will have seen before, itv shows use them all the time, voting on X Factor for example, that daft question on This Morning that even a 2 yr old could answer, all designed to get you to text to it, you pay the charge but are subscribed to receiving further texts at whatever cost per message received.

 

Once subscribed, and it could be as simple as not unticking a box during installation, or maybe your son/daughter not realising that they are subscribing to receive the premium rate messages. This does happen very often, many parents allow their kids to "go on their phone" without understanding the implications.

 

The only way to stop being charged for them is to opt out by sending the words "STOP" or "STOP ALL" to the 5 digit code the messages come from. If you dont, the charges will keep coming till you do.

 

Insist that you never agreed to any such subscription, dont for gods sake tell them it may have been the kids, if you stand your ground you can get them refunded.

 

 

Great post, Agree totally but this isnt the case.

 

The phone was an iphone, Had a lock on it so no one else could use it. I can GUARANTEE we never responded ever to any kind of subscription messages. MiraGames is some company to do with virtual life or something ive done all the research. So this is where vodafone can not try and put the blame on us as we have never responded with any responses to say " YES " or "Y" to any of these companies.

 

So i dont know how they can just do this without our authorization

[lyonzy1]

Just to add a question for the OP, the amount is £360 and you say there were 3 x £30 per bill so thats £90 per bill, 4 months bills?

 

Did you query the first of these bills or was it not until the 4th bill?

 

 

We did query it but whilst the query was in progress in around Nov time the bill came in and then again in december they were still taking the money. At which case we cancelled the direct debit as it was causing us to go overdrawn.

[silverfox1961]

Hi

What doesn't seem to have been asked is, "Has VF or MG provided proof that you subscribed to this service?"

 

The VF rep may see this thread and offer his help but I would be sending a SAR to both VF and MG to get the account history. If you didn't subscribe, someone (or some system error) did.

 

When sending a SAR to them, ensure that you enclose plenty of ID evidence. VF, particularly are hot on ID protection and what you would consider sufficient very well may be not enough for them.

 

In the meantime, if you haven't logged this as a Formal Complaint, I feel you should do so. Vodafone (and other companies) do not treat a complaint as such until they are made formally aware.

 

I'm a bit concerned that you have stated that you have stopped your DD. If this means that VF are not getting their £20 a month, they will screw your credit file.

[martin2006]

The reason i queried the billing and when it was first reported there may be a problem was because if you reported on the first bill, you have a stronger case to argue that you were not told how to stop the services. If it were subsequent bills the weaker the argument gets as you would have paid 1,2 or maybe 3 bills without querying.

Other possibilities are that the game was used on a computer and your mobile number/itunes account was linked to the game for "in app" purchases, again this would normally require you to "opt out" rather than opt in.

That said tho with itunes, any charges incurred are invoiced by apple. Something is very wrong with this and vidafone need to step in and investigate exactly hiw these charges have accrued

[lyonzy1]

Well i found some emails on here yesterday and submitted this thread to the vodafone directors to take a look. Out of 8 email addresses 1 director has replied so im hoping to gain some kind of resolution from this. I will be taking the next step of asking for a FULL statement of ingoing and outgoing SMS / CALL logs though as if this doesnt reach a resolution i believe i can take this to small claims court.

 

The fact Vodafone have already offered me £100 refund and havent even disconnected the phone line which remains unpaid tells me that they know they are responsible. But i will wait for the outcome from 1 of the directors and hopefully they will finally be able to assist me, Not that i expect anything to come of it since everytime i do it goes to a dead end.

[martin2006]

Sorry 1 further thing i missed from your post, you do not need to respond to the received messages, once you receive them, you are charged, thats hiw it works. As i said earlier, the only way to stop them is to send "stop" or "stop all"

 

Official complaints to both vodafone and miragames to discover precisely how subscription was obtained, dates of initial subscription, how initial subscription happened and from what source/ip address etc

[lyonzy1]

MiraGame do not wish to be involved they told me they no longer use SMS billing and just generally dont seem intrested. My last email to them was ignored. So it looks like Vodafone is my only option

[martin2006]

Miragame, unfortunately ARE involved and they need to explain how this has happened.

Official complaint to them and if unsatisfactory response is received, you can then move on to court action.

Just because they dont want to be involved is completely irrelevant, they are intrinsically involved.

[lyonzy1]

Miragame, unfortunately ARE involved and they need to explain how this has happened.

Official complaint to them and if unsatisfactory response is received, you can then move on to court action.

Just because they dont want to be involved is completely irrelevant, they are intrinsically involved.

 

 

Ive just sent MiraGame an email telling them to take it as an official complaint and to provide all information they can regarding the mobile number in question.

[martin2006]

I would also send that complaint in writing and one to vodafone, create a paper trail should you need to bring court action

[lyonzy1]

I have alot of email correspondence and also my 1st protocol was to send Vodafone a letter but they responded with something totally unrelated to my complaint they didn't understand it seems but i have copies of everything so if court action is required i think this will be what happens.

 

Then il be seeking the £360 + bank charges + compensation for the time consuming process and the distress caused by them

[martin2006]

So write back to vodafone and ask them to deal with the concern you raised

[lyonzy1]

After extensive conversations they decided to place the account in " Deadlock " as i wouldnt accept £100 refund.

[martin2006]

Is that in a letter stating its their final response?

You would also need the same from miragames, final response then your course of action would be to issue a claim.

Thats a little down the road for now tho.

[lyonzy1]

Yes thats their final response - Dead Lock no more will be done on the issue.

 

Phonepayplus gave me a final response as posted above

 

MiraGame just plainly dont care about anything just some crappy chinese company

 

But the thing is what i do or where i go from here is a total mystery.