£1.50 SMS scam - T-Mobile's part

snipped to..

I sent this letter to my MP today:

Complaining about fraud to them.............you are wasting your time.

He or she will be far too busy doing their expenses,

1. Cleaning the moat - 1200
2. Building the Duck House - 5,300
3. BigMac (with double cheese) - 3.75
4. Toshiba 56" Plasma (for the Parents Home where I stay when in town, sometimes) - 2499.

Vote with your feet.

I will be doing that but unfortunately I am under contract and if I go elsewhere I won't be able to take my mobile phone numbers. I will have to wind down all my contracts with T-Mobile.

"voting with my feet" won't get my money back.

Presumably if you "wind down" the contracts (i.e. let them expire) you can the retain your phone numbers, and what you're saying is that until that happens, the phone numbers are locked into the contract.

Or are you saying that the phone numbers are locked into the provider and cannot under any circumstances be moved?

If moving them is possible, then surely if you sue, as you say you intend to, this will be in effect on the basis of their breach of contract. If you win, you should become entitled to terminate immediately *and* keep your numbers.

BTW, I think writing to your MP is a daft idea, unless you want to bring about a change in the law to make something illegal which ought to be but isn't yet. However, this case looks like it's about something which is already illegal and is therefore an ordinary matter for the courts.

and even that's living in cloud cuckofukinland

How long do you have left of your contract?

Yeah, there's your problem, right there.

Write to their Executive Office informing them you require the audit trail that shows you opted-in or subscribed to these services.

Tell them that if the said audit trail isn't received within ten working days you will report the matter to the Police as fraud and obtaining pecuniary advantage by deception. Plod will be obliged to give you a crime reference number. They are also obliged to investigate but these days.........

If an audit trail exists, they'll forward it onto you but I can guarantee they'll fold faster than a pack of cards.

Yeah, there's your problem, right there.

Write to their Executive Office informing them you require the audit trail that shows you opted-in or subscribed to these services.

Tell them that if the said audit trail isn't received within ten working days you will report the matter to the Police as fraud and obtaining pecuniary advantage by deception. Plod will be obliged to give you a crime reference number. They are also obliged to investigate but these days.........

If an audit trail exists, they'll forward it onto you but I can guarantee they'll fold faster than a pack of cards.

but first they will deny receiving your letter...

But not if you send it special delivery... (price £4.95 provided weight not over 100 g).

No

I'm not certain of that. If they like unreasonable behaviour they may make it difficult.

Of course I want a change in the law. People shouldn't be able to offer these services on this basis without making it clearer what is going on. We need a real regulator not one in name only.

I have three contracts which have about a year each remaining. They are not coterminuous though but I can live with that.

I've written a letter to T-Mobile as well and I was hoping to contact the police but they are usually useless - people who answer the phone are not police and usually don't have any intelligence.

I understand that the City of London Police have a better understanding of economic crime so I will contact them.

Yes, special delivery still seems to be working.

It would appear that Royal Mail are so incompetent that they have given up asking for signatures for "recorded delivery". This appears like another example of fraud on the part of a large organisation.

Are you also reconsidering any further consent to direct debit?

that's how they work, a little bit here and there when they know the 'giver' considers its way to expensive to take it further and just forgets it. Imagine they only need 10,000 'customers' @ 20 a head and they have 200K for nothing but a room with a computer. Now say they have 100,000,000 'customers' worldwide...........ooooo lovely jubbly.

I asked them not to take the money by direct debit but they said there would be a charge for that. I wasn't happy with that considering they are taking money from me without reasonable cause.

I suppose that if they take the money by direct debit I can get it recalled using my bank and pay them the amount without the fraudulent charges. I can keep doing that and deal with the extra charge they might try to make.

I went to the police station and the policeman who I talked to and his sergeant said it was not a crime. I said I wanted to make a complaint against the police and he said he didn't know how I should do that (seriously). He did give me a telephone number of a police station!

I'm writing to the Independent Police Complaints Commission next!

I bet those 2 cops had a laugh when you left.

You are wasting your time. Try Googling text scams in particular T Mobile.

I remember when a kid (late 60's) finding a shilling, yes, 5p, and taking it to the local cop shop. They wrote out a report and after a month I got it back cos the owner did not report it lost. Bloody hysterical now when I think about it.