Help you cell phone bill from this scam!!!

[camera_mom]

I wasn't actually sure how to word this as it is not an actual deal but a savings.

I recently got my Rogers cell phone bill and saw charges from a 3rd party. $10 per charge. Rogers informed me I had to contact the company directly to have the charges credited back to my account. To say the process is difficult is an understatement. Not only do they need all your account information, they always want your email address. It sounded very scam like. I am supposed to get back the amount in 5 business days.

I googled the company and it turns out all cell phone providers have been allowing this thing within the last 3 months. Rogers/Telus/Bell/Fido all have complaints of people online saying they did not authorize this and it is a bugger to get the money back.

I called Rogers and they give you an option to block all 3rd party invites to your cell phone for free. I assume that the other providers provide the same service.

If I can help 1 person from going through this hassle and saving themselves the $ by posting this here, then my job is done.

[couponmamaof03]

what are they charging you for?

[camera_mom]

Apparently my charge was a text sent to my iphone and "maybe" one of the kids clicked on it or when I/hubby clicked to view the text it meant we had subscribed to the daily gossip subscription. If we had actually received a daily gossip we might've realized something was going on, but the only clue we had was when our cell bill was $25 higher than normal.

[terr994]

Same thing happened to me with MTS!! I had $175 in charges, short text codes or something they told me!! They waved half!! But still tried to tell me I had to authorize it...bs...I did not authorize all these stupid companies to text me!! They also told me there is nothing to prevent it from happening again...so stupid!!

[nessa23]

this thread prompted me to check my Rogers bill. No extra charges.

I can only think of one thing.... those awful commercials that advertise ringtones or jokes, or whatever they are trying to sell ("Text us at 55555 to receive this cute bunny on your screen") . I totally think they are targeting children with these ads, because when you read the fine print it says 'authorization for monthly subscribtion at $10 per month' or something similar.....
Ya... spam on my phone? No thanks.....

[camera_mom]

Here's a link to a techie's blog who had the same thing happen to me. It isn't the commercial for ringtones as I thought of that too.

http://notshawndunn.blogspot.ca/2012...-gamifive.html

[nessa23]

interesting article. Good to know.

[majormom]

My son clicked on a text which ended up being a subscription to something for 13 a month. The phone number to cancel it was right on my Rogers bill. They sent me a cheque as a refund. But the good thing is that Rogers was able to put a block on my sons phone to prevent it from happening in the future. They also have a data block on both of my kids phones because we do not have a plan with data. Hate surprise phone bills.

[coley3]

That was an interesting article. Thanks for the heads up. I'll be checking my phone bill carefully from now on.

[leff]

Same thing happened to my mom.. She called Rogers and they said they can't do anything. She got mad and cancelled her cellphone with them and decided not to pay the charge and the cancellation fee. After a couple of months Rogers sent her account to a collection agency but she just ignored their calls. Now it looks like even the collection agency gave up because they stopped calling. I guess the time they took to call her wasn't worth $150.00 she owed them..

[mstickle]

I guess the time they took to call her wasn't worth $150.00 she owed them..

It will definitely be worth it to them 5 years down the road with all the interest charges adding up. DO NOT ignore the bill! Negotiate it and try and get them to take it off, but definitely don't ignore it. I guarantee they haven't given up, just because they haven't called in a while. You'll regret it later when the bill is up over $5000, or more. It adds up FAST!

[elsiefaye]

This has also happened to two out of three cell phones in my family. One month these charges were $150!! I am with Rogers by the way and had to call and cancel the gossip subscription 3 times on the one phone. I was pretty peeved the last time I had to call and the guy on the phone offered to put our numbers on a block so I will not get these charges again. I have asked family members how they subscribed, what they clicked and they honestly did not know. It's disgusting that companies can charge for this and get away with it.

[Brownie]

I was scammed on this too -- $9.99 a month for 3 months before I noticed the strange charge. I called the company (Gamifive/Buongiorno) that was adding charges to my Fido bill, and after much arguing they refunded the charges. They claimed I had entered my cell number on their website, and had replied to their text and authorized charges. Entirely untrue -- it's a total scam.

Fido did say they have had countless complaints about Gamifive, and they would refund the charges if Gamifive didn't. Since Fido is owned by Rogers, I would definitely consider pursuing a refund, instead of having a potential negative impact on a credit rating. With the number of complaints the cell phone companies are getting, I think they are having to admit it's fraud and that customers are being bilked.

You can also file a complaint with the Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services. Gamifive has been running this scam in several other countries before they started hitting Canada. You can protect yourself by blocking third party charges on your phone, but getting scammed is never fun.

http://www.ccts-cprst.ca/

Good luck!

[camera_mom]

Just got another bill and yup you guessed it, 2 more charges of $10 each.

[neelkamalll1979]

Eek! I enter contest all the time and enter my cell #. Will be more careful.