Red27 phone scam email conversation (1)

<<Our Inital Email to Red27>>
Dear Sir/Madam,
On the 30th of January, 2020 (30/01/20) I received 2 text messages to my
mobile phone [PHONE NUMBER] from Short number 57977. These texts stated;"FreeMsg:
Your FREE TRIAL to GamesUnltd is here! Free for 24hr, 30 days access for 20.00
EUR after. Send STOP to 57977. Help 016869147 support red27mobile.com
< http://red27mobile.com/ >"
Followed by;"Your GamesUnlimited Free Trial is here! Click the link to enjoy
your content: https://start.freetrialclub.mobi/?id=H37cYHyMnp
< https://start.freetrialclub.mobi/?id=H37cYHyMnp >".

These texts and their subsequent "subscription" were unsolicited, as I never
signed up to any "service" provided by either GamesUnltd or Red27Mobile.
Between the 31st of January and the 28th of February, I was billed a total of
71 times, each costing €2.03, totalling a cost of €144.13. These texts were
from you, under the short number 57977.

Given that you operated this "service" in the Republic of Ireland, it is
required that you comply with the Code of Practice ("the Code") of the
Commission for Communications Regulation ("ComReg").This subscription is in
fact in violation of this code under article 5.9, which states;
"PRS Providers must not raise a premium rate charge to provide information
about a Subscription Service or its availability. A premium rate charge may
only be raised when an end user has requested and subsequently unambiguously
consented to subscribe to the PRS and the PRS provider has delivered the PRS to
the end-user."
I did not request to be subscribed to this "service" nor did I ambiguously
consent to subscribe to it.
I hereby demand that I be refunded the €144.13 in full, or I will be forced to
have recourse to ComReg against GamesUnltd and Red27Mobile if I do not receive
a full refund within 10 days.
The Comreg Code of Practice
https://www.comreg.ie/premium-rate/code-of-practice/
< https://www.comreg.ie/premium-rate/code-of-practice/ >

Sincerely,
[NAME]

<<Red27's feeble response>>
Dear [NAME],

Thank you for your email. GamesUnlimited is a non premium gaming service offering user's unlimited access, online play and downloads for a one month period for a one-off cost. The first 24hrs is free for the user as a trial of the service, this is in order to achieve overall customer satisfaction.

The service is promoted via banner advertising often seen in applications, on Google, YouTube or related third-party publisher sites on your mobile phone. In order to activate a subscription, a consumer must follow the below steps:

The user will find the above described banner advertising, and upon clicking,
will be redirected to the service landing page.
This payment page features further information relating to the service, including the content but most importantly the price, frequency and terms and conditions. To activate the service and confirm acceptance of the terms, the user must click the confirmation buttons, the first of which states ‘Confirm’.
Upon clicking ‘Confirm’ as above, the consumer is shown a second button that states ‘Confirm this charge to your mobile’.
Upon the above confirmation, the consumer is shown a ‘Thank You’ page, confirming the details of the service and allows the user to Continue to the content portal
The consumer is delivered to the content portal where they may browse, play and download unlimited content without any additional charge.
Whilst I am hopeful that the above information assists in your enquiry, I would like to take the opportunity to add some additional points for your consideration:

Maybe it is possible that someone else has access to your mobile device (friends, family or children).
Perhaps you were not aware that it is possible to activate mobile premium services via your mobile device.This is then billed via your mobile telephone bill.
Perhaps you activated the free trial to access the service and simply forgot to deactivate the service.
Please check your text message inbox for welcome/reminder messages from our service.
Nonetheless, I can confirm that this service is now cancelled and no further billing will occur. I sincerely hope that the details above have helped to explain and alleviate any concerns you may have. However, should you remain dissatisfied with the above explanation, you are welcome to escalate your complaint via our internal escalations process. Should you wish to do this, please kindly reply to this email with the below information:

- Your mobile phone number
- Your reasons for complaint escalation
- Confirmation that you are the owner or bill payer – we simply require a date of a billing transaction or a brief description of a text message received from the service (or a screenshot of a text message from our service will also suffice). Sorry, this is due to GDPR and Data Protection!

Note: If you are not the bill payer, please provide confirmation that you have permission to discuss the transaction with the bill payer.

- Also, i would kindly request you to please provide us with a screenshot of the itemised bill where we can see the charges by date, time and shortcode.

Thank you sincerely for your time and I wish you a good day.

Best regards,

Customer Support

Red27 Mobile

<<Our Follow-up  email>>
Dear Customer Support Team,



I require a full refund for all charges made to my mobile phone.  I do not accept your explanation and I will address your assertions in full.

 I confirm that I am the account holder for the mobile phone account [PHONE NUMBER].  I am the subscriber to that phone number and I suffered this loss to your unauthorised gain.

 The first and only contact from you was with my mobile phone account and was by text message on 20th January 2020 at 5:40pm.  The two SMS messages arrived together at that time and did not result from accessing any banner advertisement and were completely unsolicited. I have included a screenshot of the SMS sent to me without authorisation.  No game was downloaded and your services were not availed of.  There was no confirmation or permission given to charge my phone account, there was no clear and unambiguous confirmation that charges were made to my account and there was no statement of charges forwarded to me at any stage.  This SMS constitutes an Invitation to Purchase as defined by Regulation 2.19 of the Code of Practice - Premium Rate Services (PRS) Commission for Communications Regulation.

 My phone account is paid by direct debit from my bank and on a recent review, I found these unauthorised premium charges.

 You state that Games Unlimited is a non-premium service.  It is absolutely a Premium Rate Service as defined by the Communications Regulation (Premium Rate Services and Electronic Communications Infrastructure) Act 2010.  Section 3 of that Act defines the term ‘Premium Rate Service’:

 (a) it consists in the provision of the contents of communications (other than a broadcasting service) through an electronic communications network or by using an electronic communications service, which may include or allow the use of a facility made available to the users of the service,

(b) there is a charge for the provision of the service which exceeds the cost attributable to communications carriage alone, and

(c) the charge referred to in paragraph (b) is paid by the end user of the service directly or indirectly to the provider of the electronic communications network or electronic communications service used in connection with the provision of the service by means of a billing or other agreed payment mechanism;

 The unauthorised charges to me are evidence of that and I doubt that the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) will accept the assertion made in the opening line of your email.  As a Premium Rate Service provider, you are obliged to hold a Premium Rate Service Licence.  Do you hold such a licence?  It is an offence under Section 12 of the Act to provide a premium rate service without a licence to do so.

 You assert that the 'service' is free for 24 hours then there is a one-off charge - why then was there a total of 71 charges to my mobile phone account?  I did not subscribe to any such service.  Your free 24 hours is to 'achieve overall customer satisfaction' - I am to inform you that it didn't work, nor do I believe it was intended to work for overall customer satisfaction, it is obviously a hook to try and lure people in so they can be scammed.  I assert that this is a breach of the Honesty provision of the Code of Practice under Regulation 3.12.

In addition to the above, under Regulation 4.8:

4.8 (a) PRS Providers must ensure that end-users are informed clearly, comprehensively and unambiguously of the full and true cost of using a PRS prior to incurring any charge.

(b) Costs must be presented in Euro, inclusive of VAT unless no VAT applies, and include the Euro symbol (€) or, where that is not possible, use the word "EUR" or "Euro". For charges less than €1, prices in cent must be presented as "€0.XX", "EUR 0.XX", "Euro 0.XX" or "cent"

(c) Without prejudice to the generality of the requirement imposed by Section 4.8(a) above, PRS providers must, where appropriate, provide the following information:

(i) any costs, additional to the cost of the service, relating to delivery or other charges,

(ii) any sign-up cost,

(iii) that additional network data charges may apply,

(iv) the price per message sent and/or received and the number of messages required to complete the transaction,

(v) the duration of any "free" or discounted period and the relevant charges that will apply thereafter, and

(vi) if it is a Subscription Service, the charge per period and that charge period,

 You say that the service is promoted through banner advertising, but this was not how my account was accessed.  You quite obviously also send SMS messages to harvested or random phone numbers also.  This is what happened in my case.  I did not go through the process you describe in your email.  I did not click on any banner advertisement and I did not click on any Confirm button or on any Confirm this charge to your mobile button.  There was no Thank You page.  There were no games accessed or downloaded.

 No person in my household or elsewhere signed up for this service.

I was aware of the existence of premium services, but I was unaware that they could access my account through unsolicited SMS and take unlimited charges without at least periodic notice of receipt and regular opt-out options.  The costume of a scammer is to keep taking the cash without giving notice of charges, without periodically giving the option to withdraw and without regular updates on the 'service' they are providing.  That costume fits you well despite your assertions on Reddit and other platforms that you are not a scammer.

I did not "forget" to deactivate the 'service' since I did not sign up to it, I was not aware of these charges until recently so could not forget what I was never aware of.  I have checked for 'Welcome/reminder messages' from your 'service'.  The only messages I got from you are the two in the .jpg screenshot below.  The process you describe would suggest that there would be a time lag between the first SMS message you see in the attached .jpg file and the second.  Both arrived together indicating that the process you described is not how you obtained access to my account.

I can confirm that I do indeed wish to escalate this complaint via your internal escalations process.  Thank you for welcoming me to that process and I can assure you that if I do not receive satisfaction form that process, I will escalate outside your 'internal escalation process'. For clarity, here are the details you require:

My Mobile Phone Number: [PHONE NUMBER]

Reason for escalation:  There were at least 71 unauthorised deductions through my mobile phone account and I want those refunded in full and without delay.

Confirmation of Subscriber:  I am the subscriber to this mobile number.  I have attached the first page of a bill from my service provider to demonstrate that I am the subscriber.  I understand that this is required for Data Protection reasons but I also wish to make it clear that this information, my mobile phone number and name and address, email address and all my details are being provided to you solely for the purpose of the resolution of this dispute.  You do not have permission to pass my personal data to any third party for any reason and you do not have my permission to use my data for any purpose other than the resolution of this dispute.  Once this dispute is resolved, I require confirmation that you will remove my data from your records.

 I have attached the relevant extracts from my mobile phone invoices for precise details of the charges and short code.

I require immediate confirmation that you will refund all monies taken from my account without delay or argument.  As I have previously stated, if you fail to do so, I will escalate the matter to the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) and with the Department of Communications of the Irish Government.  I can assure you that our Minister for Communications takes a dim view of businesses who operate in the Republic of Ireland without regard for the statutory requirements under the Communications Regulation (Premium Rate Services and Electronic Communications Infrastructure) Act 2010  and the associated Code of Practice.

For ease of reference, I have attached the Code  of Practice.
Yours Sincerely,
[NAME]