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Finally got to the bottom of a mobile phone con that hit me after I tried to use Alicante Airport's supposedly free wi-fi on New Year's Day (you are given an option of paying about €4 or registering for free). The perpetrators say Alicante Airport wasn't to blame for their ad popping up on my phone. I will leave you to make your own minds up about that. I was trying to connect to the airport's 'free' wi-fi (most cafes in tourist ares of Spain offer genuine no-strings free wi-fi these days) and several forms popped up from 'sponsors' during the registration process. Clearly by freaskish coincidence then, one of these apparently was a competition site that charges you £4.50 a week to belong to. I certainly saw no message saying it would charge me and would never enter a competition with an entry fee anyway, although I did respond to a message asking me to input a PIN which I was clearly meant to have believed was part of the process to get the free wi-fi. The firm involved says I must have seen the small print and known I was agreeing to this and is refusing to refund the £9 they have charged me. They clearly get most of their money from people unwittingly clicking on pop-ups, something which is much easier to do by accident on a phone than on a computer.
So anyway, be warned. The firm behind this scam is SB7 Mobile Ltd which operates out of a PO Box no in Kingston Road, SW19, but had a registered office in Newport Pagnell. It has built up a business from this worth nearly £1m operating under names such as MintedMobi, JuicyWin and PrizeFun. A fair amount of their money must come from people they have conned because they have a dedicated complaints line, known to all mobile service providers, that is very slick and cunning. First you are given a list of options in the hope you will merely unsubscribe. If you insist on talking to someone, you hang on for a minute, then get an 'all our agents are busy' message withe the option to request a ring-back within 24 hours. I suspect the use of the plural in 'agents' is misleading as everyone ends up talking to a woman called Danielle Martin, 'customer services and partner manager' (Google one of the firms and her name). She is very well trained, threatening to terminate the call if you interrupt her carefully scripted spiel or get annoyed in any way that she is refusing to refund the money her firm has conned you out of. She, of course, claims that no one can be tricked by what her firm does (so by implication was accusing me of lying and trying to con her, something I was not supposed to get at all upset about). By ringing you back hours later, rather than answering your call, she is the one prepared for the call and with the upper hand... and she has clearly had plenty of practice at batting away accusations of fraud.

After ringing virgin the gave me
This number to try recover the money from my acc i think if virgin or any other of these big mobile companys no whats happing why can they not be hold responsible as they take enough money of us as they know its a scam why can they not block these scammers why do they let them into our accounts to let rhem take payment off :(

Hello, did you get the scammers? Recently we were charged £4.50 for incoming texts from a company called mintedmobi using number 60 044. Wondering how they got our number. When I called o2 there was no joy and was told to contact minted mobi customer service. It feels as if there is no law to stop this atrocity.

Hello, did you get the scammers? Recently we were charged £4.50 for incoming texts from a company called mintedmobi using number 60 044. Wondering how they got our number. When I called o2 there was no joy and was told to contact minted mobi customer service. It feels as if there is no law to stop this atrocity.

If you have a query about a number it does not help if you post it under a thread for a different number.    Only by chance did I see that your query concerned 60044.      Of course there are laws.   Follow these notes.

PhonepayPlus has the following information about shortcode number:
60044

Customer care number:     0330 134 0181
Customer care email:     help@sb7mobile.com
Customer care website:     SB7 Mobile Ltd has not provided this information
Search result provided by:     SB7 Mobile Ltd
Service connected on:     14 May 2015
Service terminated on:     This service is still operating
Name of service:     Competition
Type of service:     Competition - non-scratchcard
Service description:     Competitions
How much does this service cost?     £4.50 per message received

If you would like to find out more about this service or have a question about it, then you should contact the service provider: SB7 Mobile Ltd

3A Woburn Street
Ampthill
Bedford
MK45 2HP

If you are unsatisfied with the outcome from the service provider, please get in touch with us on 0300 30 300 20

Hi Lydia,

I wondered why my mobile phone bill was about £30 more expensive this month? And it is indeed due to Minted Mobile, 60044. I have opted out twice now, and have just called their help
Line which is closed but have supposedly unsubscribed as of the following working day. I didn't realise that I had subscribed in the first place, I don't even know what service I am supposed to receive for 4.50 a text? I think it has been a scam, and I want my money back!

Please advise of what you are looking into, and how I can help put these crooks out of business!

Kind regards,
Joely Hodgson
07456 635773.

Don't know