That's not a typo, I meant SPANNER, 'cause that's what they are... tools!  Oh, enough of my never ending wit already...

Regulate this!

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!

The Bud-dy Movie of the Year!

Oh this really does take the piece of pie.  I've just come across the most annoying website I've seen in a long time.  What to check it too?  Here's PhonepayPlus's 'How to patronise the yoof 101':

PHONEbrainless

Unfortunately PHONEbrain is run by an organisation whose members make money from the above - That's why you won't see them recommending the yoof leave these services well alone.  It'd be silly for them to give up their cash cow that is us, the unsuspecting public.  But even if you avoid all premium services it won't make you completely immune to bill-shock.  You don't need to call or text any premium rate service or shortcode to end up with a nasty surprise.  And I'm sure there's been a time when many on prepay/PAYG needed to call mum or dad and were left with no credit because of this.

Doin my PHONEbrain in!

Notice that they now offer a service called SMSus.  It can cost upto 12p to call and what it does is tell you who scammed you sent you a lovely premium message that you of course opt-ed into.  Kinda interesting that PhonepayPlus.org.uk has no mention of paying upto 12p for the same service...

How much does it cost, who knows!

This would appear to suggest that texting 76787 is completely free.  There's no mention of 'never more than 12p'  If the industry regulator can't even offer a service involving shortcodes without mudding the waters, how do we expect them to regulator the likes of mBlox?

Oh, and hi to "client use" in London (if that is your real name!) - Repeated visits over four and a half hours?  You're taking a lot of interest in my posts about these shennanigans.  I just missed you half an hour ago but hopefully you'll come back and read this.  Remember, if you're from mBlox and/or are in any way responsible for the the shortcode 84566 you owe me £1.50 for every page hit I get from your IP address.  I'll be dropping by your London office(s) to collect, so don't forget!  And as a treat, I'll be Qik-ing it live to the interweb.

And if "client use" is a fellow victim, please get in touch I'd love to find out more.  Alternatively it could be PhonepayPlus, but you way as well be mBlox for all the good you do.  Useless bunch of muppets.

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