866-569-2226

Got this charge on my December bill. Thanks to all you guys who had already called and complained I had no issues with Rogers Cust Service - they already knew this was scam and were very friendly and coming forward, removed the charge and blocked any 3rd party sms for the future, however they said they wouldn't be able to block this one sender as it has already got my number, but they gave me a number to call the scammer directly: 888-887-8445 to demand being removed from the list. Not surprisingly, the number directs me to a voice message redericting to me a website: fxminc.net and select account or customer service or sth like that. I will try that, too, and had left a phone message...

I received a $1.00 charge on Dec 24. It was for a text message with nothing on it but a circle. I called the 1-866-569-2226 for billing questions and the line is always busy. I called Rogers, they credited me the $1 charge and they put a 'premium block' on it. Rogers also requested that I text them back with the message 'stop all'. I hope that this works. Rogers was very easy to work with.

Got a $1 charge on my Fido bill. Contacted Fido via Live Chat - very helpful! They refunded the charge, blocked the number and told me to text STOP to the number that texted me. I really like doing this kind of thing via live chat b/c they I have a record of the convo. :) But, in any case, Fido was very helpful. Clearly, a lot of people are getting hit with this. SO FRUSTRATING!!

I had the same issue: $1 charge for Third Party Services from FXM Inc. on Dec 30. Just called Fido today (Jan 14) and they took off the charge without any squabbling (well, he said he would credit my account $1 - I'm still waiting for that to happen). He told me he would put a block on my phone for future texts of this type, but encouraged me to call FXM Inc. and tell them to stop (I informed him that the given number doesn't work). Thanks to everyone who had to fight with Fido/Rogers prior to this - you've made it easier for the rest of us!

The number showed up on my most recent Rogers bill, and was apparently made on December 22.  I don't even remember seeing it.For what it's worth, I contacted Rogers today to find out about it (before finding this site) and the manager (I had to escalate to second level) on live chat said that they are aware of the issue and are working on it.  

That said, not all of their customer service reps are aware or helpful. The first customer service rep I spoke to was abysmal, claimed it was all my fault and there would not be a refund.  I called back, got a different one, who said she didn't know about the company, but would credit me the amount anyway. I contacted the manager to complain about the first person (through Rogers live chat), and let the manager know about all the complaints on this website.  So maybe Rogers will actually do something about this. It doesn't sound like all their reps know about this, even though the manager claimed they should.  I too had them block premium SMS.  Good luck!

Got charged $ 1.00 on Dec. 24 from this number.  Hmmmm—obvious scam.  Rogers refunded me the $ 1.00 and advised me to block the number myself using my smartphone.  In the last two billing cycles I've  had small charges such as this.  One, last month was for a text ($0.35) that rogers would not refund, saying it was my fault.  Do I really have to go over every bill now to make sure there's none of these scam charges on there.  When is Rogers and Fido and whoever going to do something about this?

I just got off the phone with a Rogers Supervisor (who I had to wait for on hold over 20 minutes). I too got charged the $1 XFM Inc charge on Dec 30th. After becoming frustrated with the first point of contact customer service agent I simply asked for a supervisor.  The supervisor informed me that he would reverse the charge and that this issue was reported Jan 7 2013 and is currently under investigation. Just to avoid the hassle I put a 3rd party block on my phone. Hopefully this resolves the issue.

Word of advice, simply ask for a supervisor when calling Rogers as the agent will state they cannot reverse the charge. More often than not, people make 3rd party texts without knowing and then try and get out of paying. In this case it is a scam that is being investigated.

I was on vacation from Calgary, in Cancun.  I had my phone/roaming/radio signal off the whole time, was only using WIFI.  I did not even receive the text msg. when I turned my phone on.  EVER!  It's not even in my phone memory, and didn't get a notice at all from my messaging center.  That's even more parculiar than what I've read here.

How's this even remotely legal?

The same issue for me. I had that 1$ charge on my December bill. I just called Fido and they returned the 1$ back into my account and blocked that number for me. (I called twice. The first lady had no idea and told me she can't do anything for me, the second time that I called, some else helped me, she knew what's going on and didn't question me on the details at all.)

I received a $1.00 charge on  my Dec 24 Premium service charges.I call Rogers more then 3 time to have diff rep trying to help me to resolved this issue . adv to send STOP to 131313 then say eff today a premium text Block on my cell # so will no longer get any more of the charges or service n Rep offer to crd back the charges as compliant # call will never work and no one pick up! like other have mention here! Hope all cell company will do something to this premium Services scam which rip us off. This make no seance and very unfair to us as don't even know how they got hold of our # and rip us off  Like this! Why must we be bing with a big billing which we never agreed to have to began with? Hoping the Stop Msg to 131313 will really stop them B4 i get a High bill as i just call them today ! have to follow up on my next mth invoice to see how much will be on there from this Premium Service

I recieved the same charges of $1 on Dec 22, 2012. I remember recieving a blank text from that number and thought it was weird. I called Rogers the first time and they told me I had to contact the third party FXM. Of course the number 1-866-569-2226 didn't work or was a busy signal here in NS. I had a feeling this wasn't right and googled it.  That's how I came about this thread.  I called Rogers back and told them this is scam and a problem for many  of their customers and other customers from rival cell providers.  Finally they did something about it.  They blocked the third party SMS. Told me to Reply "stop" to 131313 which you can't reply to. So that doesn't work which I already told them. I had to ask to be credited the $1 back. I emailed CBC market place and told my story  marketplace@cbc.ca

The same thing happened to me.  I was sent an unsolicited text from 131313 with no content in the message.  When I got my Rogers bill, I discovered that I had been charged $1 by a third party company, FXM Inc.  I called Rogers and the customer service rep insisted that I must have subscribed to the "service", which I most certainly did not, and that I would have to call them to unsubscribe.  She would not refund the $1 charged.  I called the customer service number for FXM Inc. on my bill - 866-569-2226 -  and the number was not available in my area.  I called Rogers back and had to escalate to a manager.  I was on hold for 15 minutes waiting to speak to a manager.  He refunded the $1 right away.  I had a block placed on my account for 3rd party services.  Because I could not contact FXM Inc. to unsubscribe, he could not guarantee that I wouldn't be contacted by that company again but he would reverse any future transactions on my account from them.  I am to reply "STOP ALL" next time I receive the text.

I asked this Rogers manager why it's mostly Rogers/Fido customers who seem to be complaining online about unsolicited messages from this company.  He didn't answer this directly and he made it clear that he felt my claim that the text was unsolicited was questionable. I probably subscribed to something via text without reading the fine print.  I have never replied to a text that wasn't from a personal contact and his suspicion still doesn't address why predominantly Rogers/Fido customers are making the same complaint as I am. That aside, he assured that Rogers does not profit off of 3rd parties, and they would not intentionally allow it customers to be victims of fraud if it meant they would lose business.  It is also illegal, and Rogers does not engage in illegal activity. That aside, Rogers does indeed profit from 3rd party billing.  They get a share of the fee.  Second, how many Rogers customers are going to cancel their contracts because an unauthorized charge of a measly $1 went through their account?  Is Rogers banking on very few customers going to such lengths?

Any theories on why this is predominantly happening to Rogers/Fido customers?  Is our data not being protected from fraudsters?

I too have been hit by this scam.

I sent the email below to marketplace@cbc.ca   I encourage everyone else to write to this show as well to help expose this scam.

Hi there,

I'm sure your department has heard about the 31313 FXM Stock Tips scam that has been hitting Canadian cell phone users hard since at least November of 2012. I recently have also become a victim of this scam and I have no idea how they got my number since I have been living in the USA since August 2012 and my Canadian cell phone has been turned off since then as well! I received a charge on my January Rogers bill for $1 from this FXM company and immediately called Rogers on it.

At first they refused to take off the charge but finally did, although this is no help since I have to speak directly with the company to get them to stop and their toll free number ALWAYS gives you a message that "the lines are busy."

This is a huge scam that is making lots of money off of hundreds if not thousands of people who have never ordered their service and something needs to be done! The cell phone companies are doing nothing to stop it, most even refuse to credit back the wrongful charges. People do not know what to do. Hopefully your show can expose this scam and get some action on this issue.

See this online forum for a small sampling of people who are victim to this scam:
https://whocallsme.com/Phone-Number.aspx/8665692226

Got the $1 on Dec 2012 bill.. Called Rogers and CSR said the charge couldn't be reversed. He claimed the message was sent from my cell and provided date time stamp of the outgoing msg. Total BS.

How they got the cell numbers to scam? My guess is the Do Not Call list. When used outside of Canada, there's nothing the CRTC can do anything about.

I got this 131313 FXM Stock Tips $1.00 charge on my Rogers Wireless bill this morning. I was no idea what is that. I called provided contact number but same lovely message "Not available from your area at this time!" I called Rogers and asked detail of this "Charge" they couldn't explained why or how and Rogers said just a mistake that they will reverse this $1.00 + HST to my account. Seems Rogers knew this SCAM but they still charging to their clients ! That was scared me the most.!!!

I called Rogers and the rep was very insistent that my wife had signed up for the service.    And rambled on about all of the great premium sites I could use.   And how we had likely signed up for the service online or while playing a game.     We referred her to the 3 or 4 websites
Iike this one. Whereeople were complaining.     Noted the refunds being given. And read her some of the stories   And also had her call the fxm number.  (she didn't get through either)

She refunded us.  And we had her block the premium number service.    

Clearly a scam and they are aware of it in my view but don't want to be refunding everyone.  
As they are on the hook for it

Try calling Rogers again.  I spoke with a man and he was useless.  He said that I had to call FXM INC to deal with it.  The number 1-866-569-2226 does not work in this area.  I called Rogers again and this time, I spoke with a lady and she was great.  She credited my account and told me that this is happening to others as well. There are many complaints about FXM INC and that somehow they have gotten hold of  cell numbers. I am not sure how this will be resolved but definitely call Rogers again until you get someone who knows what they are doing.  Good luck

same thing happened to me i called fido (canada)  to put a block on my account from text companies like this one suggested that they do some investigating on this fraudulent company
they kept telling me that they cant do anything about it
i told them they should be protecting their clients from this sort of abuse and its obviously a phishing scam cause when i got fed up with the spam i text them stop and i got a charge of 1$ and yes the phone number i called is constantly busy so it seems
fido did refund my money after 30 min of aggressive conversation and a complaint but if they would have the proper protections in place they wouldn't have had to pay for this mistake and should in fact take legal action against this fraud that is occurring
this was also not the first time i had this kind of spam i had also got some spam saying that i won free ipods i ignored them nothing came about but i bet if i would have text STOP to them i would have run into the same nightmare i urge you all to complain about this to the company so they get off their [***] and do something about it its  1$ to us but 1000's of 1$'s when there is 1000 ppl getting defrauded

if anyone is doing something legally please post the number to a lawyer id be happy to join a class action lawsuit against this company

The same thing happened to me and FIDO does not want to get it!!
It is scary and I do not see any way out except for to cancel the service with FIDO

I posted a long diatribe in other discussions (my own doing LOL) but if some of you who have posted are reading this far into the thread, you may find some satisfaction from what I'll tell you.

Short version: we requested that Premium messages and pretty much ALL of anything that can come through on our cell phones, was what Rogers WAS to remove. Even shorter, we can only get phone calls on the cells and then make them too.

In December fxm sent their "stock tip" to my wife's phone. I immediately called Rogers because I was p*ssed off about a message that should never have arrived.

Rogers advised "can't explain why a message did get thru, we have it all blocked."

So, the rep. reversed the process and for a few seconds we were fair game once again ie: such things could arrive if sent. Right after this she once again set their filters and done, nothing has come since then and it's about a month now.

Yesterday the bill reflected the $1 charge and I was seething mad. After speaking with two of Rogers finest doofuses, first told me that "he would now set the filter so that Premium Messages wouldn't arrive." Hello, THOSE WERE nuked a long time ago and please see above additional stuff Rogers had to do in Dec. 2012. I was so mad and I let the guy have it and eventually I hung up thus knowing if I call back right away, I'll get another person.

2nd person last night advised that "we cannot do anything about the $1 charge, you have to call fxm" and of course he provides me with the 1-866-569-2226 horsh*t # Doesn't matter which numbers you call, you'll always get their outgoing message and then directed to click on customer support on their website.

FXM will then require your login info. Hello, we have never heard of you, we don't visit your site so we wouldn't have any login info to begin with

DO NOT PROVIDE THESE *SSHOLES WITH ANY MORE OF YOUR INFORMATION!

Today, 3rd call to Rogers and IMMEDIATELY upon confirming my identity and the problem, Rogers took care of it immediately.

According to them: "many people have the same desires as we do-to not receive messages and fxm's apparently slipped by the filters. It was a billing error and has been corrected for many...."

yeah whatever but how many don't always look at their bills and even if only $1, yeah ya freakin' pirates, you DO get a cut of it somewhere don't ya, Rogers?

Trust me here too, yesterday two of Rogers reps didn't know how to fix it yet in other discussions I've read on here, it was around January 7th that a memo was shot across the Rogers depts. about FXM?

I believe that as of January 17th the heat has been turned on the Rogers Customer Service Depts. and they are now being bombarded with complaints. Probably a daily thing since we might all have different billing days so they're probably handling a fair amount of complaints now. GOOD, b*stards knew about our situation over a month ago and knew that I advised "when we get our bill next month, we're calling to make sure the charge we know WILL be on there, IS removed. Should have happened yesterday with the two morons in Billing but Rogers DOES have their share of dumb workers too I guess.

Start calling Rogers everyone, complain loudly because if FXM could get through a backdoor for so many of us, someone else can probably do it again. As it stands now, our messages aren't allowed so we'll see if Rogers needs another hoof in their collective rears in the near future. Yes it's quite the system and a lot of technology but what if it were your children getting messages, UNSOLICITED messages?