Cell Phones in Great Britain - 87239

Author

87239 - thieving scumbags

Dave

2005-07-26, 5:48 pm

I have a payg mobile and have never ever used any ringtone, wallpaper,
horoscope, etc services. I am not interested at all.

Then on the 15th July, completely out of the blue i got a message from
87239 saying

"Reply to win £100 weekly! Where will the 2006 FIFA world cup be held?

I'm not interested in entering any competition so forgot about it
until I realised that this unsolicited competition invite had cost me
£1.50

It seemed to be a one-off until last night when I recieved 2 identical
unsolicited messages at the same time again asking me to reply to win,
but with a different question of:

"Reply to win £100 weekly! What is the highest peak in England?"

Still not interested in their shitty competition but this time the
scumbags have just fleeced me for £3

SO out of my £10 topup, these criminals have helped themselves to
£4.50 of it

called o2 to see if they can do anything about this but they didn't
seem interested and said that they can't block people from sending me
SMS messages.

Got the following details from the ICSTIC website and tried calling
the number which doesn't seem to exist:

EPromotions
Unit 21/27, CIty Business Centre
St. Olav's Court, Lower Road
London
SE16 2XB
020 7231 4042

Have complained to ICSTIS, which could take 12 weeks to be resolved.

I don't particularly want to change my number, have had this one for 6
years now and until now have managed to avoid being scammed like this.

Anyone know how i can stop these criminals stealing from me in the
meantime? And anyone in London want to put a brick through their
window for me?

Any ideas appreciated....

benedict@despammed.com

2005-07-26, 5:48 pm

On Tue, 26 Jul 2005 15:37:18 GMT, Dave <weirdoboy@gmail.com> wrote:

>I have a payg mobile and have never ever used any ringtone, wallpaper,
>horoscope, etc services. I am not interested at all.
>
>Then on the 15th July, completely out of the blue i got a message from
>87239 saying
<snip>
>Anyone know how i can stop these criminals stealing from me in the
>meantime? And anyone in London want to put a brick through their
>window for me?
>
>Any ideas appreciated....

http://www.grumbletext.co.uk/
They've been around for a while acording to Grumbeltext.

It is suggested that you first follow the advice here:
http://www.grumbletext.co.uk/page.php?pn=gtsossmsstop

And here is the link to a page showing how to to complain again to O2
about them refusing to act in the case of a known "scam" operation:
http://www.o2.co.uk/help/complaint/0,,500,00.html

--
Benedict

Jon

2005-07-26, 5:48 pm

weirdoboy@gmail.com declared for all the world to hear...
> Any ideas appreciated....

The official way is to reply with STOP ALL. Since you have never
requested any of these services I don't think you should have to do this
but it's probably the quickest way of stopping them.
--
--
Regards
Jon

Dave

2005-07-26, 5:48 pm

On Tue, 26 Jul 2005 19:03:45 +0100, Jon <spam@jonparker.plus.com>
wrote:

>weirdoboy@gmail.com declared for all the world to hear...
>
>The official way is to reply with STOP ALL. Since you have never
>requested any of these services I don't think you should have to do this
>but it's probably the quickest way of stopping them.
>--

Thanks, I have tried that. Like you say, I never requested these
services but it's worth a try.

Can't help feeling that all this will achieve is confirm to them that
the number exists.......

Dave

2005-07-26, 5:48 pm

On Tue, 26 Jul 2005 18:00:11 +0100, benedict@despammed.com wrote:

>On Tue, 26 Jul 2005 15:37:18 GMT, Dave <weirdoboy@gmail.com> wrote:
>
><snip>
>
>http://www.grumbletext.co.uk/
>They've been around for a while acording to Grumbeltext.

Yeah, looks like i'm not the only one to be scammed by them

>It is suggested that you first follow the advice here:
>http://www.grumbletext.co.uk/page.php?pn=gtsossmsstop

I have now tried that, I shall see if it makes a difference

>And here is the link to a page showing how to to complain again to O2
>about them refusing to act in the case of a known "scam" operation:
>http://www.o2.co.uk/help/complaint/0,,500,00.html

Think I might do just that

Cheers

Allan Gould

2005-07-27, 5:48 pm

Dave wrote:
>
> Anyone know how i can stop these criminals stealing from me in the
> meantime? And anyone in London want to put a brick through their
> window for me?

Don't know about your provider offers, but my provider (T-Mobile) allows
me to block 'Mobile Terminating SMS premium' which I am told does the
job. I'm sure I'll miss out on something eventually, but in the main if
it blocks the scumbags sending unsolicited SMS at £1.50 a shot, I can
live with that.

Allan

2005-07-28, 5:48 pm

On Tue, 26 Jul 2005 15:37:18 GMT, Dave <weirdoboy@gmail.com> wrote:

>SO out of my £10 topup, these criminals have helped themselves to
>£4.50 of it

Luckily this hasn't happened to me yet but if it did I think I'd
probably try the following in order:

1. Contact my service provider by phone and in writing.

2. If they wont help contact trading standards (and let them know
you're doing so) to report the service provider, not the spammer as
under the sale of goods act I believe the SP should be responsible -
can anyone confirm this?

3. If they (the SP) continue to fail to refund or take money write
giving them 7 days to refund or you'll take out a CCJ (include your
legitimate costs in doing so, cost of phone calls etc). If they fail
then do so.

As you say I also would be very reluctant to reply to any unsolicited
SMS as that could be seen as acceptance of their terms and conditions
and your contract wording may allow the network to charge. I would
regard contacting the SMS spammer direct as the equivalent of trying
to call a factory in china about a faulty toaster I bought from the
supermarket.

If I suspected fraud I would also of course contact the police.

IMHO ICSTIS etc are there for the times when you use a service and are
not informed of the costs or the service is not as advertised. What
you are describing could just be a legitimate error or it could be
fraud.

Rgds
Jonathan

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