8 posts tagged “if you're reading this and are an employee or director or whatever at mblox - you owe me £1.50 for this visit - i'll come and collect it soon”
I rang up David Shepard and spoke to him. He claimed not to be David Shepard and was reluctant to give out any details. Now, to be honest that's understandable. I, a total stranger, ring him up and tell him I'm recording the message (if I were him I'd have hung up there) then avoid giving my own name out. Yep, I'd almost definitely hang up there. Why didn't I just give him my name? I wanted the element of surprise. He can easily find me if he wants to but it was too much fun leaving him guessing.
So, am I 100% certain it was The G I was talking to? Nope, he's got me guessing now! I'll be calling back from time to time though as I'm fairly certain he's the one. Next time I won't record the conversation as asking the permission of a scamster to record a call is a dead giveaway that you're not some friend or acquaintance.
Oh, and the reason I'm fairly certain is that he informed me I'd rung up a business but wouldn't even give out the name of it? What employee/owner of said company, wouldn't tell the caller that?
Now to the advice of PhonepayPlus. That being calling the 0870 number (at cost to me) to ask for them to kindly stop stealing my money and give me what they've already stolen back. I didn't get far with the drone on the phone, Graham was his name (at least he said that was his name, oh and company policy was to not give out surnames*) - despite my best attempts. In the end he even said that, "no you won't be getting your money back" (or words to that effect) before hanging up. Nice! Call should be quite expensive too as I was on there for over 5 minutes.
I was on hold for quite a while to begin with as well. Nice little money spinner running one of these lines, especially if you defraud people and they have to call you to get their money back. Anyway Graham claimed it was a call centre contracted out to Spread Media and that he couldn't put me on to anyone else. He wouldn't tell me a thing about the company he claimed to be working for or Spread Media, their "client".
They knew Spread Media were as dodgy as a £6 note (well they ought to have as they both got fined at least twice before together) and yet they continued.
Be interesting how much they're willing to compensate me and how many others got ripped off (especially those that have no idea!). I don't think any amount of money will do, but I'm open to offers. Maybe a job? I'm willing to work for you guys and tell you which companies you shouldn't work with. How about that? If I'm working for you combatting this fraud then I'm not blogging about you. Win win situation, don't you think?
The thing I'm most interesting in is if I hadn't kicked up a stink would their own internal audits and monitoring have picked it up? Were there other complaints? I'm thinking there might not have been, despite there being possibly countless individuals affected (people have no idea you can be signed up for something you didn't sign up to and have 'em help themselves to your account). Like when all these scams come up I search the interwebs for fellow victims to see what they've had happen to them, whom the provided is and what can be done about it. This time the number didn't come up with anything (it does now though!
It'd be nice if my Bud and the G-man would show up and account for their actions, but that's about as likely as PhonepayPlus being an honest, trustworthy and independent body with no strings attached, no conflict of interest. I can dream, this is the UK after all!
Oh yeah, this is a keeper. How they got my email address is another question... Oh wait, it's on my blog! The email address is used almost exclusively for my VOX blog and I didn't give it out to mBlox or PhonepayPlus in any dealings with them.
Now if someone can check out the IP addresses for me, I'll be able to send them an invoice for each time they've visited a page. And of course, if they "unsubscribe" (personally signed by Andrew Bud, accompanied by a grovelling apology and an explanation as to why mBlox kept doing business with Spread Media after they were found to be acting dishonestly)
Right, just wanted to get that out there first. I'll do a screengrab and transcribe the email and place them here (and various other haunts of mine). I've also got some interesting phone conversations that I'd like to share too. Hmm, maybe transcribe them with Spinvox? ;-)
That's Andrew Maurice Gordon Bud (or as I like to call him, The Regulator). For those not up to speed, he's the head honcho at mBlox (which incidently my network, 3, refuses to mBlock) That's the company that gives fly-by-night fraudsters a nice and easy way to rob people wihout having to worry about the physical and tiring aspect of mugging folk on the street (y'know, a victim might fight back!). Another bonus for criminals is the knowledge that the police aren't in the slightest bit interested in unsolicted reverse charging premium shortcodes (it doesn't have the same ring to it as burgled, pickpocketed or mugged). Oh, almost forgot - again, if you're not up to speed - Bud is also one of the head honchos at PhonepayPlus, the 'government agency' that is meant to keep premium calls and text services nice and legal.
Back to Davey G, it looks like his site www.spreadmedia.co.uk is down and out. Some of his other ones are still up and running. I wonder why it's no place to be seen? Has he done a runner? How much has he made out of his scams? And why was Bud willing to business with G again if he says mBlox doesn't work with the bad apples? It can't be because mBlox is short of money? Will we be seeing mBlox going out of business, mBlox being wound up, mBlox running out of cash or mBlox desperately looking for funding before mBlox collapses, are investors worried about mBlox or is mBlox even a concern? (See what I did there?)
Crikey,it's half past three. I better see if I can get Davey G on the phone. Word!
By the way, check out these views...
That's not a typo, I meant SPANNER, 'cause that's what they are... tools! Oh, enough of my never ending wit already...
I would love to hear from those of you that have had a run in with PhonepayPlus/ICSTIS maybe even OFCOM or OFTEL, PayPal or PalPlus. Whatever they like to be called on a Tuesday! Crikey, it's Tuesday already!
Of equal interest to me and presumably the majority of the people reading my Fraudwatch posts (remember don't have nightmares, goodnight and good luck) are the perpertrators and enablers, the likes of mBlox and the Tanla's and Spread Media's of this world. Anyone got any stories about these less than savoury folk (oh I hate biting my tongue!)
The world (okay the UK) needs to hear your story, so please get in touch. I know you're reading as lots of people were checking out my latest Fraudwatch posts, from across the country - and they can't all be Andrew Bud (scroll to comments for a treat) or David Shepard.
BTW for those new to my blog, Andrew Bud's company is in cahoots with the scammers and he is also The Regulator - I'll be back... to steal your money!
If you don't know the quote from my 'title' above, then I'm probably going to sound a tad on the postal side of things. For those of you that that describes, let me put you at ease and say GO WATCH THAT MOVIE!
So, Ant, we get the title and we want to know what's grinding your gears. Please tell us!
You want to know what really grinds my gears? And, in no particular order, here's what:
- People making excuses for the unexcusable
- Getting nowhere when talking to customer services
- Being expected to pay a premium to call a company who rips you off and then profits from the call you've just placed to stop them ripping you off further
- Having to bite my tongue because I'm venting too much
- Wasting hours upon hours over this crap - but I'm so er, peeved that it's not about the money (they could give me 100x the amount back, I wouldn't give a crap* it's the principle and I want to make everyone aware about this issue)
- There's a bunch of other things but fudge it, I guys got to eat and before I do I think I need to make another call or two!
*Not entirely true, it would be quite nice but even if you made it 1000s - no wait - 10,000s it wouldn't stop me from bitching as I don't think anyone should get a penny stolen because companies and industry regulators aren't do the right thing/their job.
...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.
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