SMS message scam

We were in Blanca town picking up the mail, and decided to give Bec a call to see if she wanted to meet us for coffee, I got a recorded message on the mobile to say I had run out of credit. The thing was, I only topped it up a couple of weeks ago and had hardly used it. So when we got home I went on to my Vodaphone online billing to see where the credit had gone. It turns out that a company called Artiq mobile 795791 had billed me 1.20 euros everyday until my credit had gone, and as soon as I recharged the phone had started again, I then realised that everyday around 5 in the afternoon I had been getting a SMS with the title PUSH MESSAGE from 795791, needless to say I did not open any of these messages and thought nothing more of it.

This company had somehow got hold of my mobile and had subscribed me to something -i dont know what, and unless i did something about it, I would be charged 1.20 a day.

So I googled the name Artiq Mobile to find that they are a Dutch company who operate a ringtone scam and have been fined 1,190,000 euros by the Dutch consumer authority for for the large-scale provision of misleading SMS services to consumers, there are literally hundreds of forum postings on different forums of people complaining about being ripped off.

Anyway I got onto Vodaphone customer services explained what had been happening and was told they would stop the message being sent. So far I have not received any more messages.

So keep an eye on your mobile bills because this seemed to start with no request from me and could of gone on without me realising.