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.
