topic Fraudulent billing of 4.50 weekly in Account and services

Fraudulent billing of 4.50 weekly

AmanKin — Mon, 15 Apr 2024 13:16:22 GMT

I have been Billed 4.50 monthly for a year now for a subscription I never made. I have called three and they said to contact the service provider myself! The name of the service on the bill has even changed form Mad4mobile to Fun Vids. How do I stop this.

Re: Fraudulent billing of 4.50 weekly

AmanKin — Mon, 15 Apr 2024 13:21:54 GMT

It's not monthly..The 4.50 is a weekly charge. If anyone has any solution to this please help.

Re: Fraudulent billing of 4.50 weekly

Anonymous — Mon, 15 Apr 2024 16:59:12 GMT

If this is Three pay (and you don’t say it is so I’m making a massive assumption here) then I believe there is a team within customer service whom you can approach to query and POSSIBLY get a refund from. But I’m not 100% sure as regards refunding you so check. Secondly you must approach the company taking the money and tell them to stop,although how you didn’t notice a £4.50 weekly payment being made for a year is one of life’s mysteries.

Re: Fraudulent billing of 4.50 weekly

Officina-red — Mon, 15 Apr 2024 19:35:59 GMT

You are suffering from a scam, you need to contact whoever you use to pay these charges, credit card or bank or Three, tell them you are being scammed, they will be able to stop the payments but you may have a hard time getting a refund.

Re: Fraudulent billing of 4.50 weekly

JonathanB — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 15:03:29 GMT

Hi @AmanKin,

Did you manage to unsubscribe from this service? If you still need help with this, here's some more info.

This sort of charge will either be added to your bill by Three Pay transaction, or by a reverse charge text, usually from a 5 digit shortcode.

If it's a Three Pay transaction, you can usually unsubscribe from the website or app which subscribed you to this. If you're not sure where this has came from, there should be a helpline number for the provider on the itemised section of your bill. You can usually call them to unsubscribe too.

If it's a reverse charge text shortcode, you can also usually text STOP or STOP ALL back to the shortcode to unsubscribe.

You may also be able to find further support from the Phone-paid Service Authority. They regulate charge to bill services in the UK.

Thanks,
Jonathan

Re: Fraudulent billing of 4.50 weekly

Uche5 — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 07:49:57 GMT

Three is very nonchalant for not being able to solve this, I honestly don't know what to do anymore it's so frustrating. Are they clueless to the fact that it's a scam

Re: Fraudulent billing of 4.50 weekly

Uche5 — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 07:50:41 GMT

Three seems to be nonchalant to the issue

Re: Fraudulent billing of 4.50 weekly

JonathanB — Thu, 21 Nov 2024 16:15:16 GMT

Hi @Uche5,

I'm sorry to hear you've been dealing with a premium charge and weren't able to find a solution. I understand your frustration, but our default assumption isn't that any additional charges are scams or fraud.

We'll be happy to try and assist, but can you let us know a bit more about the circumstances. For instance is this a reverse charge text shortcode, or a Three Pay transaction? Have you been able to check your itemised bill to see the description of charges there?

If you let us know a bit more about what you've been experiencing, we'll do our best to help or point you in the right direction.

Thanks,
Jonathan

Re: Fraudulent billing of 4.50 weekly

Uche5 — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 18:43:33 GMT

It is definitely a premium rate scam. Call whatever number you give they'll say that your number is not registered with them. Please provide a solution to this, I keep getting the same useless advice to call them

It's a scam, it needs to be dealt with

Re: Fraudulent billing of 4.50 weekly

Uche5 — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 18:44:17 GMT

That's the things, it's a scam, it's hard to do so. We can't just unsubscribe from this!!!!

Re: Fraudulent billing of 4.50 weekly

PeteG — Sat, 30 Nov 2024 15:20:13 GMT

The service looks like a legitimate business. While I can understand it's frustrating to have payments taken for so long unexpectedly, unsubscribing is an option. If you are having issues unsubscribing, you should be able to block the payments from going through by contacting the Support Team and requesting for them to set your Credit Limit to £0. The credit limit is not the same as your spend limit, so setting the spend limit to £0 won't have an impact on 3rd party charges.

Pete.

Re: Fraudulent billing of 4.50 weekly

Ajstar — Fri, 03 Jan 2025 11:16:52 GMT

I am currently going through the same 4.50 a Week charge, no way to cancel it no number works, everytime I ring 3 then next person gets ruder because they have already helped me, when they really haven't.

3 weeks later my next step is legal and OFCOM see if they have any advice.

Re: Fraudulent billing of 4.50 weekly

PeteG — Sat, 04 Jan 2025 16:30:52 GMT

Hello.

My advice would be to request that the Support Team set your Credit Limit to £0. This is different from the Spend Cap that you would normally interact with on the App, and will prevent any 3rd party charges from going through. This will normally result in the cancellation of any subscriptions that are in place since the companies in question will not be receiving their payments.

Pete.

Re: Fraudulent billing of 4.50 weekly

Sam277777 — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 09:05:21 GMT

I have been charged £4.50 a week for a year. They were using my 5G Moden's number to send the text messages, so how I was suppose to know? And the account with the direct debit was my partners account, and she was going through chemotherapy at the time, so not checking every charge in her account. After long talks with three, and they avoiding any responsibility, the only solution was canceling the services. I even spoke to the company that was charging me, but they did not care, of course, and they are based in Germany, and the support is in Croatia, hard to go after them from the uk. So my advice is: Cancel your services. Hope that helps.

Re: Fraudulent billing of 4.50 weekly

nicholascollier — Tue, 14 Jan 2025 12:45:16 GMT

Just on the phone to 3 technical support. They can't block any 3rd party payments buy setting credit limit to zero. 3 is facilitating scammers and there are many simple solutions they could do to stop this.

Re: Fraudulent billing of 4.50 weekly

JonathanB — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 15:32:55 GMT

Hi @nicholascollier,

I'm sorry to hear you're having some trouble finding a solution in regards to a 3rd party payment. It looks like this is your 1st post on the Community. Can you help us understand your experience a little better please?

What sort of charges have you been dealing with a shortcode text, or a Three Pay charge? How were you alerted to the charge?

Thanks,
Jonathan

Re: Fraudulent billing of 4.50 weekly

salb — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 16:26:49 GMT

same here three are not even helping saying we set it up ourselves the whole time. its really frustrating and i dont even know how to stop this

Re: Fraudulent billing of 4.50 weekly

kingy10005 — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 16:07:53 GMT

only way to stop these is threaten legal actions for breaking the consumer rights act 2015 and say your legal team will be investing the charge that you didn't authorise it's definitely a scam and three customer support does absolutely nothing to stop it or protect it's customers so stupid

they immediately sent a refund and stopped the charges after I threatened them with legal action because they know dam well there doing a scam

Re: Fraudulent billing of 4.50 weekly

Nafis — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 13:58:00 GMT

Same things been happening to me, three customer service are completely useless, I hope someone can do something about this and make three pay for their poor security which is allowing for such things to happen

Re: Fraudulent billing of 4.50 weekly

Castellan83 — Tue, 19 Aug 2025 13:43:26 GMT

If extra charges are appearing on a home broadband account then you, as the payment service provider, should recognise this as a scam. I have cancelled my direct debit because you are responsible for my account security and if the fraudulent charges are not dropped and refunded then I will escalate this to the ombudsman. I certainly won't be reinstating my direct debit until it's resolved.