I've got screen grabs but can't be arsed to upload 'em right now.  But I will paste the transcript of my complaint and the number (it's 84566 just incase you didn't see it in the title).

Details of your complaint

Your name: Ant

The number you are complaining about: 84566

The phone number you accessed the service from (if any): 07XXXXXXXX (they gave me no choice but to enter a number here even though I didn't "access the service" - I put in my real number the Xs are so I don't get harvested here)

Did you give us permission to pass on your details to the service provider? No

Where the promotion was seen or heard: Other It wasn't sent as a 'promotion' it was yet another scam premium-rate SMS sent fraudulently pretending to be a close friend.

What the promotion said and what service was being offered: Again, it wasn't sent as if it were a promotion, it did not say it was offering anything. They purported to be someone I knew, in the hope that I'd spend £1.50 replying to them (they've just stolen £1.50 from my account)

Were you fully informed of the cost to use the service? no

Was there a non-premium rate customer helpline number made available? no

What the complaint is about: Hmm, it should be clear by now. This is yet another scam that mblox is caught up in. You know, mblox - of course you do, you've fined them enough and there's mblox folk involved with phonepayplus.

PhonepayPlus will look at the information you have supplied and assess whether there has been a breach of our Code of Practice - this will trigger a formal investigation.

PhonepayPlus aims to resolve all complaints where we have the evidence to do so. Our investigation process is very detailed and can take up to 12 weeks to complete. We may need to contact you for further information and we will also question the company running the service. A report is then presented to the PhonepayPlus Board who will reach a decision on the case.

If we decide a breach of our Code of Practice has taken place, the company running the service must immediately make necessary changes to the service and/or its promotional material.

In addition, the PhonepayPlus may decide to take the following action:

* stop the companies from running certain types of services
* impose a fine - up to a maximum of £250 000
* order reasonable and valid refunds to be paid to the complaints

Dammit! Just noticed they didn't include the transcript of the SMS itself... here we go... 

"Id love to see u babe x when  is best for u?, im free all next week, tb"

Transcribed as best I can, mistakes by them and all.  Note the lack of an opt-out blurb, anything regarding costs or mention of the company, a support number or Ts&Cs.  I guess they figured if they'd provided those legally required things it would spoil the 'sent from someone you know' feel to the scam.  And anyway, why worry about the law when it's not going to be enforced or anything like that?  

Without being all 'big brother' (ya know, Orwell's one - not that Endemol worldwide crapathon) it's nice to get an idea of who's reading your blog and why.  Comments are a good start, but as I'm reminded regularly - one has to have a VOX account to leave one.  That's just one of many reasons why I'll be shifting over to something else once I can get my head around all the options.  Thanks to those on Jaiku and the recent Mobile Geeks of London for their thoughts, recommendations and advice, I'm still digesting it all!

Anyway, back to the matter at hand.  It's nice to understand your audience, and yes it is nice to see which companies take an interest.  It's also interesting to see those that, for instance, have clearly got an Eee PC and come back regularly (I'm not sure who they are but the fact they keep coming back is nice, hopefully they get something out of the visit!)

Currently typing this on a Vista laptop and it's winding me up almost as much as my Eee, so think I'm going to end typing there.  Bloody stupid thing!  Oh yeah, I forgot all about those 'blocking cookies' - I've enabled them in StatCounter for all projects, all browsers and all computers that I use.  What does that do?  It prevents my own visits to my blog (either when composing or viewing my work of art!) from polluting the results.  It's easy to set up and I should've done it properly months ago. 

...or back garden/yard.

* You've gotta love the weekends. My comments are still up on mBlox head honcho's YouTube video page!
* I completely forgot to add a transcript, screengrabs, the shortcode number relating to the scam (plus a bunch of other relative things) - I'll get right on it.
* Kinda big oversight forgetting the number and the message body - as anyone else in the same boat won't find my post as easily...
* Huge amount of traffic from the States and Canada today, hopefully some of you guys will stick around...
* ...Can I tempt you guys with Jaiku invites?

And any legal eagles reading this (other than mBlox's counsel - remember if I see any of you guys here that's £1.50 a visit) and have knowledge of British law - Do we have anything like 'class action' suits?

That's all for now as, like I said, in the garden - and it's now pitch black out here (it's nearly 9pm BST)

The above post is a little 'lost in formation' (logged in on this laptop as my nephew and posted this to his blog by accident! Figured out my mistake as soon as I'd posted it and then just copied and pasted it here!) Rum & Coke, plus sunstroke played no part in the error, I can assure you.

Okay, here are the deets:

• I'm ok, I'm fine I wasn't hurt in the incident
• They only stole a small amount (price of bus ticket)
• They tried to trick me into believing they were someone else
• I knew they were lying immediately, even so they're going to keep taking money from me unless I give them more money first (then they'll leave me alone).

Sounds like a crime, no?  Sounds like I should report it to the police, does it not?  Despite a spate of these, and despite that it's theft, pure and simple (oh and add a bit of a protection racket-type element in to the mix) I've been told the police won't be interested.  The police have never prosecuted a single person over this despite that there are 100,000s (if not millions) of other people in the UK who've been a victim too.

I'm sure some regular readers have figured out where this is going.  For those that haven't, it's bad old unsolicited reverse charge premium rate fraud time again!  Yet again it involves mBlox.  I'm not a happy bunny.  Like last time I don't give a crap about the £1.50 they've stolen off me (not that I'm rolling in money but poorer people have lost far more than this).  It's more to do with the fact that it's done so blatantly and they keep getting away with it.  For what it's worth I use the 'they' to mean not only mBlox (although they would appear to be the main culprits) but all of these companies.

Some nuggets as to why I'm really incensed over this:

• How dare any company send me anything purporting to be from someone I know.  That's fraud, that's deception, that's just not groovy
• How dare they steal from me
• The industry regulator expects me to spend money in order to make the fraud stop (protection-alike racket, no?)
• How dare the regulator ask me to give money to the fraudsters in order to phone the fraudsters (why can't I charge the fraudsters to receive my messages?) ;-)
• The ones involved in the fraud are also the regulators of the industry.  Conflict of interest, anyone?  Corruption at worst.
• The police won't get involved in these cases.  Er, hello?  This is fraud, theft, possibly conspiracy to commit something or other?  No?
• This has been going on for years
• The networks/carriers/operators in the UK don't give a crap.  Most won't help out or try to block these services (even when asked).  Why not?  Because legally they don't have to and, if I were to be cynical, perhaps it's because they get a cut of the action?
• It's a nice day outside and I typing this, because I'm so freaking pissed off with this.

Fudge this, it's too nice a day... (we don't get too many of them 'round here) But before I leave you check out what I've left on mBlox's YouTube page (considering their reputation and the sheer amount of hatred they've inspired across the interwebs, they didn't choose to approve replies to their vids on YouTube channel!  Bet they will soon!)

Here's some screen grabs I took of the YouTube page - for prosperity...

Oh dear - can you spot the join... I haven't got time to do a re-grab

Oh God, I don't think I'll ever get out today at this rate - there's just so much great stuff to be found about this stuff.  I've got links, threads, reports, stories, whines, press releases, all sorts.  Thanks to those that have provided me so far and if anyone else wants to send me more, feel free.  You can send a message to me completely free of charge!


And the following is a snippet from what I've just been reading.  Damn it's good...

"People are angry, because the rules for how things must be advertised are very unclear. We’ve been pushing to get them tightened up, to avoid exactly this kind of confusion."

Er, you're not just in charge of the company involved, you're um, the regulator!  Can you not tightening things up yourself?  Oh no, you can't, that'd mean less revenue for your company and that job pays more than the phonepayplus gig.

That's Bud-e's commentating here: Just the facts ma'am  He also dropped by at the Mirror, a bit more recently:

Mblox fined again over premium rate phonelines

mBlox a winner, originally uploaded by Mike Grenville.

They sure are a bunch of w... oh, winner! Well, not so sure about that!

Possibly a sign that I watch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report too much...?  I'll post, you decide!

How did you read that?

Here's how I read it!

This phone, yeah this one!

Maybe that's a bit extreme, I'll let the guy from DHL pick it up.  I'll stand tall, all the while trying to keep the tears and sadness inside (I can't let the 'Classic' see me cry, I have to be strong!)

Yep, you guessed it - WOM World want "my" Nokia 6220 Classic back.  I always knew this day would come.  I just couldn't have guessed how attached we'd become.

Expect the mother-of-all round-ups fairly soon.  But, as you've probably guessed, I give this phone a thumbs up.  There's more to it than that and it's not a phone for everyone but that's the general gist of it.

The Symbian Blog posted about this update two days ago and I really need to get in gear and do a spot of updating, myself!

What prayers need to be answered?  Well there's some Bluetooth headset issues: My stereo headset* either goes quiet or stutters every few minutes or loses connection (causing my handset to blast out my tunes to all and sundry).  There's also some strange problems with the otherwise excellent GPS - but they're mostly related to the Sports Tracker app.

Anyway, before I head out for an early evening jogku later, I want to make sure I've updated the phone.  It'll be nice to able to listen to an hour of music without interruptions!

Hopefully the update process will be painless.  It's OTA (over-the-air) and I don't think I need to back up anything (although I wouldn't recommend not doing so).

*whoa, found a video demonstration of my Sony headset on YouTube.  Compared to me, this guy looks normal wearing them!

The Symbian Blog posted about this update two days ago and I really need to get in gear and do a spot of updating, myself!

What prayers need to be answered?  Well there's some Bluetooth headset issues: My stereo headset* either goes quiet or stutters every few minutes or loses connection (causing my handset to blast out my tunes to all and sundry).  There's also some strange problems with the otherwise excellent GPS - but they're mostly related to the Sports Tracker app.

Anyway, before I head out for an early evening jogku later, I want to make sure I've updated the phone.  It'll be nice to able to listen to an hour of music without interruptions!

Hopefully the update process will be painless.  It's OTA (over-the-air) and I don't think I need to back up anything (although I wouldn't recommend not doing so).

*whoa, found a video demonstration of my Sony headset on YouTube.  Compared to me, this guy looks normal wearing them!

Anyone that's visited lately will, unless they've been on mobile phones, have noticed that I've been playing around with animated GIFs.  They're hardly the most cutting edge technical achievement ever, but I like them and can knock 'em out pretty damn quick.

However, they don't work on the Nokia S60 browser nor Opera Mini.  I've not tested the GIFs on Opera Mobile yet or any other mobile browser.  I'll have to rope in my sister to test the iPhone.