# Pay as you go scam - help required



## morlandg (Jun 8, 2008)

Can anyone help get me out of this pickle? I have apparently signed myself up to some agreement on my mobile telephone. How I don't know. I guess I must have replied to one of Movistar's messages with 'GANA'? That was 2 months ago. Since then I keep getting 'browser' messages. Initially my available credit ran out surprisingly quickly so I recharged with 10 euros. I made no phone calls nor sent text messages and my credit ran out in a few days. I thought it through and I thought maybe I had agreed to pay for some text messages with a whole load more for free so I then recharged my phone again with 10 euros on xmas day. I have made no phone calls nor sent text messages and tonight I have received a text message from Movistar to say that my credit is less than 2 euros. My wife and I speak very little spanish but my wife phoned 1004 and spoke to an english - speaking woman. Her english was slightly better than our spanish and she told us that we had signed up for some special offers and that each text from the sellers would cost us 1.2 euros + IVA and to cancel the contract we should text INSO to some tel number. We have tried that and are awaiting a reply!!
I refuse to recharge the card again and lose another 10 euros. So - has anyone any experience of this and if so how did they cancel the contract?


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## xicoalc (Apr 20, 2010)

morlandg said:


> Can anyone help get me out of this pickle? I have apparently signed myself up to some agreement on my mobile telephone. How I don't know. I guess I must have replied to one of Movistar's messages with 'GANA'? That was 2 months ago. Since then I keep getting 'browser' messages. Initially my available credit ran out surprisingly quickly so I recharged with 10 euros. I made no phone calls nor sent text messages and my credit ran out in a few days. I thought it through and I thought maybe I had agreed to pay for some text messages with a whole load more for free so I then recharged my phone again with 10 euros on xmas day. I have made no phone calls nor sent text messages and tonight I have received a text message from Movistar to say that my credit is less than 2 euros. My wife and I speak very little spanish but my wife phoned 1004 and spoke to an english - speaking woman. Her english was slightly better than our spanish and she told us that we had signed up for some special offers and that each text from the sellers would cost us 1.2 euros + IVA and to cancel the contract we should text INSO to some tel number. We have tried that and are awaiting a reply!!
> I refuse to recharge the card again and lose another 10 euros. So - has anyone any experience of this and if so how did they cancel the contract?


Sounds like the "offer" you aparently received from Movistar was not from Movistar. Similar things happen in the UK.. remember Jamster ringtones..,this cost thousands of people a lot of money because they were innocently trying to get things like the crazy frog ringtone.

In the UK, you can reply to a text with STOP (or send STOP to a number they must provide) and they are obliged to remove you and stop charging you. I am not sure what the equivalent is in Spain. I would have thought that Movistar will be able to tell you who you are paying this money to via SMS´s and give you their contact details. Once you have this I would call them. Obviously if your Spanish isnt great then maybe ask a friend to call for you, but I would have thought that unless by replying you entered a contract, there should be a way to unsubscribe.

I guess the moral of the story is that you should NEVER respond to any texts or calls claiming to offer you something good. If you get something you like the sound of then either call your operator to verify it, or better still, go into a movistar/vodafone/orange etc store and show them the text to find out if its real and what it involved!

Good luck!


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## Mame (Aug 8, 2008)

I had the same problem with my vodafone mobile. A visit to the vodapfone shop with a fluent spanish speaker brought no results at all, they were totaly disinterested.In the end I have ended up changing the sim card and have had no problems at all.


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## xicoalc (Apr 20, 2010)

Mame said:


> I had the same problem with my vodafone mobile. A visit to the vodapfone shop with a fluent spanish speaker brought no results at all, they were totaly disinterested.In the end I have ended up changing the sim card and have had no problems at all.


I use the phone house now.. Find them amazingly helpful. Obviously from the sign they are the same people as the carphone warehouse in the UK (who i hate incidently) but they are wonderful.. set me up on vodafine, and any tiny queries i go in and they sort it, or call someone to sort it. AND better still they have fluent english speakers in our local store (all be it they always make me speak spanish because "Esteve ... necesitas la práctica" and rightly so!

Lovely people!!


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## jimenato (Nov 21, 2009)

Try replying to the next message with the text "STOPALL"

Also put the exact text of the text message you receive into a google search. You will probably find loads of forums with people who have had the same problem and know how to sort it. The latter method worked for me.


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## morlandg (Jun 8, 2008)

After my first loss of credit I went to the Movistar office in El Ingenio in Velez Malaga but they simply told us to phone 1004 - Telefonica.
I'm annoyed that I've got myself into this predicament. If necessary I'll just bin the SIM card and put it down to experience. Fortunately we have a spare mobile with SIM card and I am now using that one.


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## thrax (Nov 13, 2008)

morlandg said:


> After my first loss of credit I went to the Movistar office in El Ingenio in Velez Malaga but they simply told us to phone 1004 - Telefonica.
> I'm annoyed that I've got myself into this predicament. If necessary I'll just bin the SIM card and put it down to experience. Fortunately we have a spare mobile with SIM card and I am now using that one.


Thats the best way to go, just dump the phone and forget about it. As it's PAYG there is nothing anyone can do about it and after 6 months of not recrediting it I believe it is terminated anyway. A lesson learned. I got stung by something similar in UK and ended up taking them to the small claims court. They cost me £25 or there abouts and I successfully sued them for £250 plus costs. AND they paid up amazingly. They never showed up at the hearing.


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## morlandg (Jun 8, 2008)

STRANGE!!!
This morning I have just received a text message from 1004. Movistar have credited my account with 8.80 euros!!
Thanked us for showing confidence in Movistar.
What is that all about??


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## Metalmicky (Sep 17, 2010)

morlandg said:


> Can anyone help get me out of this pickle? I have apparently signed myself up to some agreement on my mobile telephone. How I don't know. I guess I must have replied to one of Movistar's messages with 'GANA'? That was 2 months ago. Since then I keep getting 'browser' messages. Initially my available credit ran out surprisingly quickly so I recharged with 10 euros. I made no phone calls nor sent text messages and my credit ran out in a few days. I thought it through and I thought maybe I had agreed to pay for some text messages with a whole load more for free so I then recharged my phone again with 10 euros on xmas day. I have made no phone calls nor sent text messages and tonight I have received a text message from Movistar to say that my credit is less than 2 euros. My wife and I speak very little spanish but my wife phoned 1004 and spoke to an english - speaking woman. Her english was slightly better than our spanish and she told us that we had signed up for some special offers and that each text from the sellers would cost us 1.2 euros + IVA and to cancel the contract we should text INSO to some tel number. We have tried that and are awaiting a reply!!
> I refuse to recharge the card again and lose another 10 euros. So - has anyone any experience of this and if so how did they cancel the contract?


Sorry to hear about your problem but the mobile phone industry here is 'well dodgy' and will try to turn a euro wherever possible. First question, do you have a contract? It seems odd if you are on paygo that any contract can exist other than the basic agreement you made to provide the paygo service. Ask, no, insist that they send a copy of any alleged agreement to you. Second, cant you throw the sim card away and get another from another provider? If your phone is locked, there are several ways you can unlock it, if you can't, then Ebay will have loads of unlocked listed mobys for a few quid. I had a wi-fi with Orange last year and it just exploded one day (a common problem it later appeared). I was told that it would be at least 3 weeks before I could have a replacement as the unit had to be returned to Madrid for inspection, despite the fact it was in a placcy bag in about 10 bits! Orange never list email contact. but make you use premium lines so I refused to use them and spent a a few hours finding Orange emails globally. I started to batter Orange with communications and as they had failed to maintain my service, they rolled over and cancelled the contract despite having engaged the services of a debt collector who was simply told to *** Off!
Stand firm, and tell THEM what you will do before they tell you what they think they can do. Good Luck


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## morlandg (Jun 8, 2008)

Metalmicky said:


> Sorry to hear about your problem but the mobile phone industry here is 'well dodgy' and will try to turn a euro wherever possible. First question, do you have a contract? It seems odd if you are on paygo that any contract can exist other than the basic agreement you made to provide the paygo service. Ask, no, insist that they send a copy of any alleged agreement to you. Second, cant you throw the sim card away and get another from another provider? If your phone is locked, there are several ways you can unlock it, if you can't, then Ebay will have loads of unlocked listed mobys for a few quid. I had a wi-fi with Orange last year and it just exploded one day (a common problem it later appeared). I was told that it would be at least 3 weeks before I could have a replacement as the unit had to be returned to Madrid for inspection, despite the fact it was in a placcy bag in about 10 bits! Orange never list email contact. but make you use premium lines so I refused to use them and spent a a few hours finding Orange emails globally. I started to batter Orange with communications and as they had failed to maintain my service, they rolled over and cancelled the contract despite having engaged the services of a debt collector who was simply told to *** Off!
> Stand firm, and tell THEM what you will do before they tell you what they think they can do. Good Luck


Thanks to you all. I'm just going to throw away the SIM card. For metalmickey - It is not on contract.
One other curious thing is that the cost appears to be linked to Browser messages. It is, I think, when you try to read the Browser message that you open the internet connection - and incur more cost. I have currently 5 of 5 unread Browser messages. I think I need to 'switch-off' these Browser messages.
Whilst I intend to dump my SIM card it might benefit other mobile owners if we continue to investigate this problem and find a solution.......?


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

morlandg said:


> STRANGE!!!
> This morning I have just received a text message from 1004. Movistar have credited my account with 8.80 euros!!
> Thanked us for showing confidence in Movistar.
> What is that all about??


They are shedding customers right left and centre to cheaper services like Orange and Yoigo - their customer service department obviously thought you were about to leave and took action!

My OH had the same problem with Movistar, he never used his mobile but his credit kept running out. We moved to Yoigo and they are much cheaper - for example a text to an international number is 9 cents, compared to 71 cents for Movistar.


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