81002

who is this?

I am reporting that y little sister of just 11 years old has had her birthday phone credit wiped from her phone in a matter of minutes this is incredibly mean and has cost £20 , who is this and why do they have the right to do this to young and vunerable people? It is disgusting, We have done a little research and it appears to be a company called zing, they are a gaming website who apparently try very hard to protect the younger audience....

I've got the same problem 04/10/2010 today mornin i've top my fon up and then i get the message and the credit from my phone disapeared. I realy can't remember that I ever goes or text to this company ( zing )
And I know what you means

keep getting messages from this number which is using all my credit as it charges me for recieving them!

i bought this phone for my daughter who is 12 years old, the phone is on contract.
for the last 3 months she has been recieving premium texts.
she did not know what they were, the total of these calls are £80.
i was blaming her for going over her allowance,
its discusting these companies can do this.
i want a full refund .

Agghhh Zing ...
It has taken me 5 months and a request of a bill breakdown from O2 (at £1.00 per statement) to discover why my bills were so high.

I happened to stop this last week but I can't remember ever signing up to any premium service.

Something needs doing about this.  I am just adding up how much they have cost me.since the first one appeared on 31st May 2010

04.06.10 - 03.07.10 a total of 03 messages = £03.55
04.07.10 - 03.08.10 a total of 12 messages = £15.32
04.08.10 - 03.09.10 a total of 18 messages = £22.99
04.09.10 - 03.10.10 - 3 messages a week x number of weeks in the month I guess

£4.50 per week every week you will be charged.

Yes the same people have charged me too

I received a Free text from these clowns informing me of my "Unique pin" to activate all I had to do was text back , I have referred the text to my delete button. Needless to say , having read this , was the appropriate action .

Same thing happened to mee nd havent told anyone!
Does anyone know how to stop this?

yes txt stop to the number the txt came frm

Thanks for the tip Shell, although the staff at Orange tried yesterday but were unable to stop it, but will try again today. My daughter keeps having here credit wiped off and I moaned at her, but it seems this Zing company can do this legally.

If we cannot stop this we will have to get another sim, although I find it revolting that this Zing can do this to young people legally.

I am about to attempt to find Zing on net and attempt to get credit back, although it will probably be fruitless, but will post something if I have any joy.

http://www.phonepayplus.org.uk/output/Search-adjudications-1.aspx


22 January 2009
Information provider    Red Circle Technologies Limited
Service provider    Zamano Limited
Information provider location     Dublin
Service provider location     London
Telephone network     All Mobile Operators
Service type     Unknown
Cost     Subscription service tariff varies £6 - £9 per wee
Number of complaints     94
Source of complaint     Public
Fine     35000

CASE REFERENCE: 754475/CB

THIS CASE WAS BROUGHT AGAINST THE INFORMATION PROVIDER
UNDER PARAGRAPH 8.7 OF THE CODE

BACKGROUND

PhonepayPlus received 94 consumer complaints in respect of service messages from the ‘Zing’ mobile content service. The ‘Zing’ service was heavily promoted in various media including main stream magazines, newspapers, websites and mobile phone accessible WAP sites.  The service operated with both subscription and non-subscription charging arrangements. Messages received were charged at a rate of £1.50 per message. Weekly subscription and non-subscription charges varied, costing a maximum of £9 per week.

The consumer complaints demonstrated a high level of confusion as to the sender of the chargeable SMS messages; consumers also disputed ever having opted-in to the service.  It appeared that much of this confusion was a consequence of the ‘Zing’ service moving aggregators in June 2008, which resulted in the service changing its short codes used for promotional and billing purposes.

SANCTIONS

The Tribunal’s initial assessment was that, overall, the breaches taken together were significant.

In determining the sanctions appropriate for the case the Tribunal took into account the following aggravating factors:

·         The cost paid by individual consumers was high (£6 per week and one consumer incurred costs of £60);
·         The information provider was aware of problems with its service and should have taken more steps to ensure it was compliant, prior to moving to a new service provider; and
·         Non-compliant subscription services have been singled out for criticism by PhonepayPlus.

In mitigation, the Tribunal noted the following factor:

·         The information provider cooperated with the Executive when notified of the breaches.

Taking into account the aggravating factors and mitigating factor, the Tribunal concluded that the seriousness of the case should be regarded overall as significant.

The Tribunal therefore decided to impose the following sanctions:

·         A formal reprimand
·         A £50,000 fine.
·         The Tribunal ordered the information provider to seek compliance advice in respect this category of service and similar categories of services, within 2 weeks from receipt of the summary decision, such advice to be implemented within 2 weeks of receipt.

Comment

The Tribunal also noted that refunds had been issued to some complainants and commented that it expected the information provider to continue to provide refunds for the full amount spent by complainants, except where there is good cause to believe that such claims are not valid.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Red Circle Technologies Limited and Zamano have been 'fined' dozens of times by PhonepayPlus.  They are completely unscrupulous.  PhonepayPlus claim to be a Regulator that protect consumer interests when in fact they are a sham.
The refunds they mention are also part of the scam.  Steal off 50,000, refund 100.  
The industry 'fine' is in fact paid from revenue specifically put aside from the scam.  It goes directly to PhonepayPlus!

The Mobile Operators are the ones who are actually debiting the accounts.  They keep a sizeable percentage (50% on average)  before passing the rest on for Zamano and Red Circle to share.  Red Circle is actually part of Zamano.

I also having problems on daughters phone and she said she has not agreed to any txt or websites shes been on and tried txting Stop but will not send to them.
Mark

The above number (81002) is regulated by PhonepayPlus.

PhonepayPlus investigates complaints about phone-paid services (e.g. services beginning with 09, 118, or 0871/2/3 numbers, or five or six-digit text shortcodes).  Where PhonepayPlus decides that its rules have been broken, it can fine the company responsible, bar access to its services and even bar the individual behind the company from running other services under a different company name.  PhonepayPlus' investigations and adjudications service is free to consumers and fully independent.

If you would like to submit a formal complaint with PhonepayPlus, you can reach it on:

•    0800 500 212 (Mon-Fri, 8am-6pm)
•    www.phonepayplus.org.uk

Very angry as this has been happening each month with my daughter, the first time she had sent a text for a ringtone (gullible kids) and each month as soon as we top her up, the money is gone.....4 months.  Have now sent a 'STOP' message, so hopefully it will STOP!!!  If not, I shall be complaining.

I cudnt understand why my fone bill so dear, then realised it was this Zing crowd! I txt "STOP" to 81002 nd received a txt stating" you have been unsubscribed from the service".. hopefully this is it sorted.. i intend to save the txt so that if they do charge me again i will bring it further!!

I am having the same problem I tried un subscribing by sending the STOP text but it says "Sending Text Failed" Help me someone please!!

I have been getting messages from Zing (81002) and they charge me £4.50 a week and I tried stopping by sending them a message saying STOP because that's what they told to do if you want it to stop but it said "sending message failed"
I'm losing a lot of money please do something about this.

The above number (81002) is regulated by PhonepayPlus.

PhonepayPlus investigates complaints about phone-paid services (e.g. services beginning with 09, 118, or 0871/2/3 numbers, or five or six-digit text shortcodes).  Where PhonepayPlus decides that its rules have been broken, it can fine the company responsible, bar access to its services and even bar the individual behind the company from running other services under a different company name.  PhonepayPlus' investigations and adjudications service is free to consumers and fully independent.

If you would like to submit a formal complaint with PhonepayPlus, you can reach it on:

•    0800 500 212 (Mon-Fri, 8am-6pm)
•    www.phonepayplus.org.uk

you must insist that these are unsolicited services you are being billed for and you must make it clear that they are ignoring the 'stop' command.