You might want to check your mobile phone bill for mystery payments after reading about how I was stung for nearly £240. My vexing tale goes like this.
I vaguely recall receiving some text messages on my phone about learning German.
As I remember it (vaguely, as I say), I suspected a phishing exercise and deleted the texts instantly. I don’t need to learn German – my German is already passable – any more than I think the ex-finance minister of Micronesia is contacting me to pass on some liberated loot.
I never expected, nor received, any German lessons. Indeed, I was blissfully unaware of what was happening under my nose until one day when I decided to take a close look at my bill.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t tend to check my mobile statement. Like millions of people, I’ve got a fixed contract. My bill is broadly around the monthly tariff, give or take a few overseas calls for my job. The bills arrive by email – they are in front of me one moment and then gone as I focus on something else. Like most people, I’m busy. But this time, when I scrolled down the bill, I was surprised to see a £20 payment ascribed to “Payforit”.
Now, I had no idea what Payforit was, even if I understood the message it was conveying.
It turns out it is a payment method that enables people to buy online digital content and services – things like videos, games and apps – and charge the cost to their phone bill. So there’s no need to enter your card details. Payforit is owned jointly by four of the largest mobile networks (Three, EE, O2 and Vodafone).
Mobile phone companies are piling into the online payment business and this is their way of making it easy for you to pay for goods and services.
When I checked back on the past few months, I realised a similar amount had been added to my account for the last year or more; the sums varied between £18 and £22.50. I totted up the total: almost £240.
When I spoke to an adviser at Three, my mobile provider, they informed me that the money was being taken by a company called J1 Media (formerly known as Learning Tree Media) for its “Learn German” service, and that I must have clicked and accepted such a service online.
I said that I did not – indeed, I have never used my phone for any such service, nor do I want to, nor did I even know it was possible for me to do so.
On its threadbare website, J1 Media doesn’t seem to speak much German either – it states: “We design and develop custom built mobile apps for iPhone, Android, iPad and Android tablets.” The website says J1 Media is based at 27 Old Gloucester Street in London’s Holborn. According to Companies House, there are a lot of companies based at that address.
Meanwhile, a quick Google of “Payforit” introduced me to the pithy Payforit Sucks website.
So who was to blame? And more to the point, who was going to give me my money back?
I’m a journalist – I know how to fight my corner. Imagine, though, that it’s your elderly relative? Or your kids?
I jumped through the usual frustrating customer service hoops: online mediation service, letter to the ombudsman (no response yet) and so on. The Phone-paid Services Authority (PSA), which is the Ofcom-appointed UK regulator for content, goods and services charged to a phone bill, says it can’t help me get my money back: “We are not a refunds service or ombudsman. We aren’t here to take up individual cases or pursue refunds. We look at issues at a market-wide level. Your information and experience can help us to resolve problems in the phone-paid services market.”
So what is the PSA doing on the Payforit front, given it is alleged that thousands of people have been left out of pocket? In February this year the PSA revealed the scale of the problem, disclosing that more than 95% of all consumer complaints made to it in the previous 12 months related to a phone-paid subscription service.
The PSA acknowledges there have been problems with people being charged without providers necessarily securing clear consumer consent. However, it says it is in the process of updating its regulatory requirements to make the sign-up process a lot clearer. The planned changes should improve the consumer experience, it adds.
In the process of trying to resolve this issue, I’ve wasted bags of time and endured serial platitudes of “understanding” and “concern” from regimentally polite call operators.
I snapped and finally sent a letter to David Dyson, the chief executive of Three. A rapid response came back from someone at the company’s “executive office” saying they were not responsible. Three told me that J1 Media claimed that in early 2018 I had signed up for its service for £4.50 a week, and that to do this, I would have “clicked on an advertising banner, followed by a three-click process, to verify your subscription to the service”.
Three told me an initial “welcome” message was sent giving details of the charges, the opt-out instructions and a care number. It added that on each 30-day anniversary of the subscription, “spend warnings” were sent that again gave this information.
But as far as I am aware, I never signed up for anything. Ever.
As a “goodwill gesture”, Three said J1 Media had offered to refund me £100 via a text message which would contain the word “MCOM” and could be taken to any UK post office and shown at the counter, for a refund to be paid in cash.
Wow – a very secret service!
In addition to this, Three said it would credit my account with £50. Would I like to accept the offer now?
A quick calculation obviously still left me £100 in the red for a service I do not believe I had signed up for, nor used, nor known about, nor in my view given my permission for my mobile phone provider to act as a credit agent for.
Add in a month of grief, and the answer was: no, I would not be accepting the offer.
Three told me it was take it or leave it time: “We’re satisfied with the information provided by the third-party supplier and do not consider this to be fraudulent. This would be our final position on this matter, and you’ll shortly receive a letter from me to confirm this.”
My beef is with Three, but it appears that all the big mobile providers are facilitating this.
I decided to take J1 Media to the county court. What else could I do? I paid my £25 and filled in the relevant documents.
Six weeks later, J1 Media filed its response. In a long defence, it claimed it was just an app for educational video tutorial micro-websites for mobile phones.
It said J1 Media “simply provides content on behalf of the UK mobile provider”, and that any claim should be directed at Three or the PSA. It offered me “mediation”. But why mediate if it’s not their problem?
I’ve declined – I don’t need mediation. I would, however, like to have my money back.
Meanwhile, we’re still crunching through the gears of the county court action: there’s nothing fast about that …
Guardian Money phoned and emailed J1 Media for a response, but none has been forthcoming as yet.
