[silversox]

My usual Vodafone bill, on my Samsung Galaxy is roughly £21 a month so I was shocked to find my latest bill came to £56. I assumed it was because I had been using 4G instead of wi-fi. I went on the Vodafone chat and had some good advice and help from one of their advisors. It seems that I have been sent and received texts from the following:

Contact number: 03333137900
Name: Oxygen8
Email: customercare.uk@oxygen8.com

I have no trace of any of this on my phone. It totalled £36.67p. On googling the number quite a few EE customers have had the same scam. How do these scammers get away with this? The Vodafone advisor said I should contact Oxygen8 and get a refund which is what I shall try to do. Anyone on here suffered the same?

[preecey]

Quote:

Originally Posted by silversox

My usual Vodafone bill, on my Samsung Galaxy is roughly £21 a month so I was shocked to find my latest bill came to £56. I assumed it was because I had been using 4G instead of wi-fi. I went on the Vodafone chat and had some good advice and help from one of their advisors. It seems that I have been sent and received texts from the following:

Contact number: 03333137900
Name: Oxygen8
Email: customercare.uk@oxygen8.com

I have no trace of any of this on my phone. It totalled £36.67p. On googling the number quite a few EE customers have had the same scam. How do these scammers get away with this? The Vodafone advisor said I should contact Oxygen8 and get a refund which is what I shall try to do. Anyone on here suffered the same?

One of the many downsides to being with Vodafone - they don't let you set usage caps or out of allowance alerts on your account. This is why I never recommend them to anyone. All other major networks have data caps, and with Three you can block any out of bundle spending.

Have you installed any third party APKs on your phone recently?
Have you accidentally clicked on a malicious advert on say, a news website? Perhaps one that subscribes you to a ringtone service where it applies a charge to your mobile account every week or fortnight? I was stung a while back while visiting a local newspaper website. A full screen ad popped up over the entire article with no option to click off it. I tapped on the screen and the ad came up stating that I had subscribed to a 'Mobile Academy' service. I was £6 out of pocket straight away.

[Mark C]

Quote:

Originally Posted by preecey

One of the many downsides to being with Vodafone - they don't let you set usage caps or out of allowance alerts on your account. This is why I never recommend them to anyone. All other major networks have data caps, and with Three you can block any out of bundle spending.

Have you installed any third party APKs on your phone recently?
Have you accidentally clicked on a malicious advert on say, a news website? Perhaps one that subscribes you to a ringtone service where it applies a charge to your mobile account every week or fortnight? I was stung a while back while visiting a local newspaper website. A full screen ad popped up over the entire article with no option to click off it. I tapped on the screen and the ad came up stating that I had subscribed to a 'Mobile Academy' service. I was £6 out of pocket straight away.

How does simply clicking on the ad, give your phone number to them ?

[david16]

There should be something done to stop the autosubscribing or autopurchasing by accidentally clicking on an ad at the top, bottom or side of the screen.

Being drunk, being bleary eyed or falling asleep while you are looking at webpages on your mobile can cost you a lot of money as you don't even realise you've clicked on the ads by accident.

[plymouthbloke1974]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mark C

How does simply clicking on the ad, give your phone number to them ?

When you browse via a mobile connection, your mobile number is sent in the embedded headers. Only way to avoid this is use a free VPN such as Onavo.

[plymouthbloke1974]

Quote:

Originally Posted by david16

There should be something done to stop the autosubscribing or autopurchasing by accidentally clicking on an ad at the top, bottom or side of the screen.

Being drunk, being bleary eyed or falling asleep while you are looking at webpages on your mobile can cost you a lot of money as you don't even realise you've clicked on the ads by accident.

EE and T-Mobile customers can ask for a "Charge to Account Bar" that does exactly this.

[Mark in Essex]

Quote:

Originally Posted by plymouthbloke1974

When you browse via a mobile connection, your mobile number is sent in the embedded headers. Only way to avoid this is use a free VPN such as Onavo.

Just wondering if there is any downside to using a VPN as I'm tempted in using one as I've fell foul to this type of scam a couple of times before by accidentally clicking on banners that just flashed up as the page was loading just before I clicked on that section of the screen for something else (luckily I got my money back by complaining).

Also are there any benefits to paying for VPN or are the free ones as good?

Thanks, Mark.

[coopermanyorks]

Quote:

Originally Posted by plymouthbloke1974

EE and T-Mobile customers can ask for a "Charge to Account Bar" that does exactly this.

With Vodafone you also apply a bar via the vodafone website

[Thine Wonk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by plymouthbloke1974

When you browse via a mobile connection, your mobile number is sent in the embedded headers. Only way to avoid this is use a free VPN such as Onavo.

Only to certain trusted partners though, and if they scam or take money without the user knowingly engaging in chargeable activity then EE or whoever should refund.

Personally I'm annoyed that there isn't an opt out for sending your phone number in web request headers to whoever the provider fancies, I think it's time toothless Ofcom put a stop to that without the user's opt in.

[Resonance]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thine Wonk

Only to certain trusted partners though, and if they scam or take money without the user knowingly engaging in chargeable activity then EE or whoever should refund.

Personally I'm annoyed that there isn't an opt out for sending your phone number in web request headers to whoever the provider fancies, I think it's time toothless Ofcom put a stop to that without the user's opt in.

I didn't know they did this tbh. It's pretty disgraceful. Does it apply to phones that haven't been bought directly from the network do you know?

[de525ma]

Quote:

Originally Posted by plymouthbloke1974

When you browse via a mobile connection, your mobile number is sent in the embedded headers. Only way to avoid this is use a free VPN such as Onavo.

Just tested this using this checker on EE and my number is not being sent in the headers. I believe O2 customers' numbers were being sent in the past, not sure if they fixed it.

[voodoofish]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thine Wonk

Only to certain trusted partners though, and if they scam or take money without the user knowingly engaging in chargeable activity then EE or whoever should refund.

Personally I'm annoyed that there isn't an opt out for sending your phone number in web request headers to whoever the provider fancies, I think it's time toothless Ofcom put a stop to that without the user's opt in.

This is the key point, the network operators effectively set up 'merchant' agreements with these dodgy sites so they should be refunding you if you're being defrauded, not fobbing you off and telling you to contact a dodgy company. It's Vodafone after all who're collecting the money from you.

If you see unexpected charges on your bank card, your bank doesn't tell you to go speak to the company, they deal with it themselves.

It's disgraceful the mobile operators are effectively turning your phone into a charge card but not then being regulated the same way the banking industry is.

[jchamier]

Quote:

Originally Posted by voodoofish

It's disgraceful the mobile operators are effectively turning your phone into a charge card but not then being regulated the same way the banking industry is.

The mobile operators have set up a way for companies to charge your account, using the PayForIt service. It only works over mobile data, so if you use WiFi you are not likely to get hit.

I don't like it, and I'm pleased to read you can now get the mobile operator to block this.

http://www.payforit.org/

http://www.three.co.uk/Support/Inter..._Apps/payforit

http://ee.co.uk/help/accounts-billin...our-ee-account

http://www.vodafone.co.uk/terms-and-...ther/payforit/

http://www.o2.co.uk/chargetomobile

[silversox]

Thanks for the feedback. The Vodafone advisor said he would block number but how many others are there out there?

Voodoofish put it in a nutshell.

[Thine Wonk]

Just a note for those looking in the request headers, you don't see it as it is filtered as it exits the network EXCEPT for the list of 'trusted' (definitely in air quotes) third parties who are in the config.

O2's error a couple of years back relates to building servers or changing a config which meant that instead of it only being left in for 100 domains and not for the rest, it got left in for *.* !!! This meant that any web server admin could log the phone numbers of visitors to their site.

It's the same sort of behaviour as banks who change their T&C's so they can sell your personal data unless you write to them by old fashioned letter (presumably with a quill) and tell them not to.

If I had a choice I'd choose a provider that doesn't treat the consumer with contempt and allows you to opt in or out of things like this from the 'my Vodafone' etc, sadly THEY'RE ALL AT IT!!!!!

[silversox]

I'm not very technically minded so don't really understand/follow the above post by Thine Wonk but am I right in thinking that:

1) If I don't use the internet at all on my mobile then I shouldn't have any problem?
2) If I don't make use of 4G and only use wi-fi when available I should be OK?

I use my Kindle for internet browsing usually so don't have any usage charges at all.