Mobile Phone spam warning

W

Welfarite

Registered User
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Just recieved EM from employer warning re spam on mobile phoens.

Message recieved says '1 new service message1, when you go to inbox it says 'my funny valentine'. Warning is not to open message as it is from a UK company, presumable charging a fortune if you open it.
 
Is this an urban myth? Is there any documentarty evidence that this has happened?
 
Nope, I'm just repeating the Em that issued to 1000+ employees warnign them of this. We have official mobile phones you see. Presume they didn't issue it as a joke and that they have evidence of it happening!
 
I've never heard of anything like this, i.e. being charged for receiving a text message? Would be interested to know if it can happen?
 
I recieved that message yesterday and foolishly opened it thinking it was from my partner. i'l check my phone records to see if i was charged when i get a chance. Got another message in this morning but didnt open it.
 
My son got a message from some company a while ago (pormoting a webite for musicv, I think) and it cleaned out his credit ...about €5.00 I think ...so you can be charged for recieving a message!
 
just checked my online billing and the message seems to have been recorded as
GPRS 13/02/07 18:44 GPRS 0.01
so its a one cent charge.
 
Hmmm....don't know why they warned us about opening it then unless their really penny pinching! Sorry for getting you worried, Paddi22!
 
Unless opening it automatically subscribes you to something.

Also, it might be that opening it confirms your phone number as live, and you will be targeted with more junk.
 

Service messages are usually a WAP Push - i.e. its a link to a web service over a mobile phone.

It doesn't sound like a scam - just spam.

However be warned that there are service out there to rip you off. I had a company billing me monthly for a service that the company wasn't providing. Rang them up - they refused to credit me back funds (and only unsubscribed me from the service after I rang a second time). They said the issue was with my mobile operator. My mobile operator refused to accept liabality and would not persue the matter for me even though they had licenced billing thru their network! Should have contacted comreg but process for doing so was not clear on comreg's site.
 
It's the attachment to the mail that does the damage. I got one a while back. Opened the lottery attachment and found myself signed up. Each week got a text which cost €2 telling me I wasn't a winner. No details on text how to unsubscribe. If you send reply text of STOP or UNSUBSCRIBE it charged you €2. Crazy.

Contact details hard to find so I had to ring my service provider.O2 sent 3 requests to get me unsubscribed. On the last request I asked them to also mention COMREG and surprise, surprise no more dodgy lotto texts
 
All services by law are supposed to unscribe you when you send the message STOP (I used to work in the area).

O2 should have had the contact details of this company.

This sort of stuff really riles me - its fraud & robbery.

 
Yeh was really surprised when STOP didn't work. Sent it through twice, incase I had a typo first time. Contact details weren't clear either for O2. They had to do some digging and send in the request 3 times.

Most companies "per O2" have a code of honour that once an unsubcribe request is made, it is done.
 
I get them messages fairly often, what I do is delete them without even reading them. I thought everybody knew that by now as this is an old scam.
 
I got a lot of jokes on my old nokia phone ( which I had to open before I could delete.) just seemed to be an ordinary phone number sending them but was actually a UK company which took €2 each time. I was unsubscribed by o2 but they said I would more than likely have provided my number to this company by entering a text competition.
 
I have had this problem. It started about October. I got these messages telling me I had won X number of Euro if I returned text. I automatically deleted all these messages and have had my phone barred from using premium numbers for about two years so I never entered competitions. My December bill included a charge of €5.1732 The numbers were 57079 and 57111. My January bill included a charge of €4.2394 and the number this time was 57500. There is NO point texting unsubscribe, it doesn't work. I called Vodafone and Regtel, not Comreg, they deal with landlines. You will get what they call a shortcode from Vodafone which you will give to Regtel (or maybe it's the other way round, I can't remember now!) and they will stop this happening. As far as I can remember two of the companies involved were Puca Ireland & Opera Telecom. A lady from one of the companies called me and said they would look into it and see about a refund, I haven't heard anything since. Perhaps I will ring Regtel and see will they chase them up again. I think it's disgraceful that companies can send unsolicited messages that cost the receiver.
 
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