85222

My friends son has been billed for £1.28 plus vat for a text message which he has not done. The short code is 85222 of which I cannot find any details about. I did contact Winplc whose gateway that it goes via and they are stopping it, but I need to be able to contact the company who has this number to request a refund and stoll all future texts.

Please reply to rayfunnell12@hotmail.com

85222 has just hit my phone aswell and taken a total of £1.50 from my credit.

Have you managed to find out any more information on who they are? How did you find out they sent the message through WINplc?

Did they repeat the texts to your friends son?

It looks like you and I are the only people speaking up about this at the moment; at least I am not alone in this scandel.

Imi,

Exactly the same with me. These thiefs have just done it. with the same message.
They are just a bunch of thiefs! Where do I have to complain? I want my money back. What they are doing is illegal!

I have complained to my network service o2 and I received an email accusing me of signing up to this premium rate messaging service! I'm totally outraged and have sent them a reply saying:

I know for a fact that I have NOT subscribed to a premium rate messaging service and if it's through a website it can only have been through 02 as I have never entered my mobile number on the internet for anything other than legitimate job applications.  I have definitely not texted a premium rate number and seeing as the text that came through requested me to chat to a woman who wanted me to view her pictures I am offended that I am being accused of doing so as I am a woman in a 2 year long relationship with her boyfriend.  I refuse to lose another £1.50 for a service that I neither willingly nor with any awareness subscribed to who could text me many more times in the 5 days or so you have told me it takes to cancel. I also refuse to believe that you are allowing someone to steal 15 texts a time off of me as I have been an o2 pay&go customer for 5 years!  If I do not receive adequate help and a full refund I will go to Trading Standards as I find this absolutely outrageous.

I have looked on the Trading Standards website and have found this website:

http://www.phonepayplus.org.uk/consumers/complain/forms/ComplaintForm.asp?QueriedTelNum=85222

I hope this has been some help =)

I've just had the same thing happen yesterday and I'm so mad I've already contacted at least 3 legal authorities to get this sorted out. I've started a thread over at http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1456265 to air my complaint. I'd advise everyone here to complain to Icstis to get something done about it, and seek refunds. It's bloody disgusting that these thieves are allowed to get away with this. The phone companies (O2 especially) are in bed with these dirty fraudsters.

I had exactly the same message as this one:

They stole £1.50 from my phone just now! I'm so annoyed! I have no idea who they are but the text said: Hey it's Amy. Got a new cameraphone!! Look at this ;) http://Itext.com/amy/9073 Text back! x x  Txt CHAT to 85222  CancelSendSTOP 150p/msg c/s01494400138

By the way Icstis is now called payphoneplus. But you can get the details from OFCOM as well. This is what I've discovered so far.


85222 seems to be connected to 80160 Mblox ltd. 0871 223 0000
WINPLC.com  with a customer service number of 01494750500. But they won't answer the phone because they're hiding.

The domain of Ltext seems to have something to do with Virtualplus ltd.

I've contacted Payphoneplus and will post on here when I hear back from them. I'm just glad it's not just happening to me.  This is such a con! It must be illegal surely?

I too have just received the message from 'Amy' and discovered that I have been charged for it. I have contacted my phone company (also O2) who gave me the local rate number 0845 130 9911 to call. This is a completely automated phone system, but apparently my mobile number has been removed from the system and I won't receive anymore texts. It also provide me with the originators number to call for enquires and refunds (0800 089 1929) however when I called it I ended up talking to a weekend porter in New Zealand, who told me to phone back on Monday! I fear I will never know how they got my number, or ever get the money back.

Hope this helps.

If you want your money back then you should complain to:

http://www.phonepayplus.org.uk/default.asp

I refuse to phone any of their numbers and waste more of my credit for no action and a bunch of lies.  If payphoneplus get a lot of complaints through it will be easier for them to do something about it all, including fining the company and forcing them to give us refunds along with further legal repromands.

o2 have just contacted me and told me to text: STOP ALL to the number that sent me the text. Because o2 could see the text came out of the blue without my consent and because they were asking me to make the text they also refunded me the 10p it cost to send the STOP ALL text.  I still want the £1.50 stolen from me but o2 said because it is an outside company there isn't really anything they can do unless they send further texts after the STOP ALL text.  Therefore I am still going to complain my eyes out of their sockets until I get my £1.50 back. This is just like the 1p bank con.  Take small amounts from lots of people and it leads to a huge sum of money.  I will not be stolen from!

PhonepayPlus* sorry for the continuous typos!

I too contacted O2 but they didn't offer to refund anything to me even though it's obvious from my account details too that I've never used this filthy porn service. O2 know full well that these thieves use automatically generated numbers, but they just don't care because it's all gravy for them. I emailed ltext.com and got a mail failure notice, so they've probably shut down already. I also emailed winplc and they're not replying. I think the only way to get our money back is to make sure that Payphoneplus either fine Winplc or force them to pay us back. WINPLC, whatever fake-company is stealing on their behalf, is responsible for this fraud.

Hello peoples.

I woke up this morning to see that 'Amy' had sent me this message between 1am and 2am, whilst I was asleep. Like you it's sucked £1.50 out of my credit and I do not want any more.

I'll fill in that PhonePayPlus form (thanks for providing it) and phone 02 shortly to see if they can cancel it or resolve anything. Though being a Sunday I wont hold my breath!

I'll keep you updated and please do the same.

I have emailed WINPLC but have had no reply as of yet, surprise, surprise.  I emailed o2. The first time round they accused me of signing up for the service and so I sent them a much sterner email. Later on that day a woman phoned me from o2 to help me sort it out.  So don't feel disheartened if they give you the brush off initially. Just try to be persistent and polite while you express your outrage.  If you've been their customer of a long time that's good to mention as no company wants to lose loyal customers and a mention of contacting Trading Standards is a plus too.  Also ensure them you haven't signed up for anything online either. I'm still trying to get my £1.50 back though...

I am so glad I am not alone. Thank you everyone for the helpful links. It is also extremly reassurring that everyone is getting the exact same text from "Amy" without having subscribed to any mobile service.

This is illegal and should be resolved.
For all of us.

I contacted Mblox (got the suggestion from from this forum, thanks for that) by email at this address: customercare@mblox.com

I received this email back today.

Thank you for contacting mBlox customer support, and hopefully we will be able to resolve this issue for you as soon as possible.

Please submit the mobile phone number and any other details located on the messages themselves, such as short code, date received, and content type so we can investigate further and identify the company responsible for sending the messages to your mobile phone.

To clarify: mBlox is a telecommunications aggregator that provides infrastructure
between SMS (Short Message Service) content providers and mobile phone
operators. You can find more information at http://www.mblox.com.

Many different companies use our network to deliver content to
customers. This content could be ringtones, wallpaper, screensavers,
games, chat services, premium text or other kinds of content that are
available and consumable on a mobile phone.  

Please do not hesitate to contact us again for any additional questions.

With kind regards.


I got the same text as everyone here and I too did not subscribe to this porn rubbish either.

I wrote back to Mblox complaining that they should regulate their network and not allow fradulent companies like WINPLC to abuse it. But apart from wanting something done about these crooks at Winplc/ltext I'm after a refund of my money too and I'm waiting to see what Mblox have to say.

Perhaps everyone else here should contact Mblox as well and complain. Surely Mblox is aware that Winplc has been fined up to £200,000 by ictis for fraudulent practices (see this forum:  http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=18301865). If Mblox know this, then they're implicated in this fraud too.

Well we'll see what Mblox has to say. Hopefully, they'll help resolve for all of us.

I too received an unsolicited text out of the blue on Sunday morning.

Fired off email to Win PLC, ofcom, phonepayplus & watchdog.

And today I received a £10 postal order by way of refund which was nice ;) Looks like my angry emails worked.

I posted my experience here: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=18376205

I am pleased to announce that the company that sent out the "Amy" messages via Winplc have recently phoned me up and said that there was a massive accident over the weekend that ended up in all of us being accidentally charged.

The company will be sending out texts explaining the problem soon and have assured refunds to anyone who had had problems. If you want to make sure you get a refund simply send an explanatory email to businessdevelopment@winplc.com and they should see that you get in touch with the right people.

Thank you everyone for the help!

I to have had a phone call from them explaining there was a massive technical hitch at the weekend and they are sending out a free message to everyone concerned and will refund anyone that has received message in error. hey everybody is human and people do make mistakes so i will see what happens.
rob

Everyone is human, yeah, but i'm still concerned as to how this company managed to get my number in the first place.

I never did write to them, i'm happy to let the £1.50 slide for now as long as I dont get any more. Still, can't hurt to write can it?

Thanks peoples.