On Wed, 17 Mar 2010 07:36:08 -0700 (PDT), andy
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 he
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/

On Tue, 16 Mar 2010 21:18:11 +0000, Martin Jay
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/

Martin Jay 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

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

On Tue, 16 Mar 2010 21:18:11 +0000, Martin Jay
wrote:

Well, well, well. Despite all it's community based fully charm,
giffgaff is just another con.

A few days ago I noticed my giffgaff balance had unexpectedly dropped
by GBP5, so I sent an email requesting a refund.

This is all getting a bit ridiculous.

I've followed the advice from con-con giffgaff: sent STOP ALL to short
code 82023 and have lost another 10p from my balance!

So I'm now down £5.10 and have to wait up to three months to hear back
from PhonepayPlus about a possible refund, which is at the discretion
of some dodgy company in Manchester.
--
Martin Jay
Back the Ban: http://www.backtheban.com/
League Against Cruel Sports: http://www.league.org.uk/

"Nicola Redwood" wrote in message
...
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

You were lucky.

I tried it once and had to argue with some very nasty vicious people. I got
nothing back.

--

Brian Gregory. (In the UK)

To email me remove the letter vee.

On Wed, 17 Mar 2010 22:39:26 +0000, Steve Terry wrote:

As Christine Keeler said "they would say that wouldn't they"

Mandy Rice-Davies actually! .-)

--
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org

"Martin Jay" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 16 Mar 2010 21:18:11 +0000, Martin Jay
wrote:

Well, well, well. Despite all it's community based fully charm,
giffgaff is just another con.

A few days ago I noticed my giffgaff balance had unexpectedly dropped
by GBP5, so I sent an email requesting a refund.

This is all getting a bit ridiculous.

I've followed the advice from con-con giffgaff: sent STOP ALL to short
code 82023 and have lost another 10p from my balance!

So I'm now down £5.10 and have to wait up to three months to hear back
from PhonepayPlus about a possible refund, which is at the discretion
of some dodgy company in Manchester.
Martin Jay


It is ridiculous, Ofcom should have at least insisted all networks offer opt
out.

But the money to be made stealing from customers has corrupted both
the regulators and networks, except T Mobile and Voda who i suspect
only added opt out after calculating that the bad PR and customer relations
it was getting in the long run wasn't worth it.

If GiffGaff gives a dam about it's reputation, all it has to do is copy
T Mobile and Voda.
As it's parent O2 doesn't, i don't expect Giffgaff will either

Steve Terry
--
Get a free Three 3pay Sim with £2 bonus after £10 top up
http://freeagent.three.co.uk/stand/view/id/5276

"Bob Eager" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 17 Mar 2010 22:39:26 +0000, Steve Terry wrote:

As Christine Keeler said "they would say that wouldn't they"

Mandy Rice-Davies actually! .-)


Yes you're right
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandy_Rice-Davies

But Keeler probably would have liked to have said it ;-)

Steve Terry
--
Get a free Three 3pay Sim with £2 bonus after £10 top up
http://freeagent.three.co.uk/stand/view/id/5276

On Wed, 17 Mar 2010 23:56:17 +0000, Steve Terry wrote:

"Bob Eager" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 17 Mar 2010 22:39:26 +0000, Steve Terry wrote:

As Christine Keeler said "they would say that wouldn't they"

Mandy Rice-Davies actually! .-)


Yes you're right
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandy_Rice-Davies

But Keeler probably would have liked to have said it ;-)

I didn't need Wikipedia! I remember her saying it at the time! .-)

--
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org