A mobile phone user has managed to force his telephone company to return almost 650 euros, charged for unsolicited premium SMS’s.
The man, resident of Granada, first started receiving these troublesome SMS, which are charged to the receiver rather than the sender in November 2010. As each one cost 15 cents, he didn’t even really notice them because they just made a 7-euro difference to his phone bill, but by December 2011 he was being charged 1.20 euros per SMS, putting an extra 50 euros on it, with the resulting bill of 650 euros in this kind of SMS alone.
He received no joy from the phone company when he complained about it, so he took his complaint to Facua, which is the Spanish Consumers Rights Group. The telephone company, which do not accept requests for refunds, argue that they do not receive the money, but pass it on to the sender of the SMS. So Facua approached official mediators.
When official mediators are called in, telephone companies accept their verdict in most cases; practically always, in fact. In this case the mediators were the Junta Arbitral de Consumo Provincial, belonging to the Provincial Council .
The request was put before the mediators in April 2012 and almost a year later they decided in favour of the claimant. The company promised to reimburse him the 647 euros which they had charged him in a ‘fraudulent manner.’
So, how do you end up being a target for these scams? You pick them up when you visit certain websites with your smart phone or when you download phone apps or call tones or even after participating in a televised competition that requires that you send and SMS to run for a prize.
What do you do about it? The first thing you do is inform your telephone company to block all future SMS’s from this source.
It is essential that if you notice that your phone bills are growing alarmingly that you double check you phone bill to make sure that there are no SMS especial, which can also figure as QTAL or SMS premium.
Facua reports that this practice is fast growing, so beware; you could be the next victim.
(News: Granada, Andalucia)