Fraudulent Third Party Charges Made Through my Phone Bill After Phone Was Stolen

[Anto]

This is a copy of a complaint I sent via a complain form. A similar email was sent to your CEO, Robert Finnegan. I will start using social media as early as tomorrow. 

I'm making a complaint as, after numerous calls to your escalation team which has led to a resolution not to be charged from fraudulent third party charges of £148.27 made on my phone after it was stolen, I've just received the bill with the third party charges in question. The escalation team had assured me these charges would not appear on my bill.

My iPhone 13 was stolen on 14 August and I went to ask for a replacement card to a Three Mobile Store which I'm using on an Android phone at the moment. I immediately saw text messages with the third party charges. I complained and escalated the complaint to the escalation team who assured me that I was not going to be charged for these charges.

I received two further third party charges on 28 August and your customer service team had to change my number. They guaranteed me that I was not going to be charged for these last two charges.

I would like to stress that you should not allow third party charges on my bill unless I gave consent which I haven't. Furthermore, third party charges on a phone bill are the most unsecured type of transactions and you should not allow them under any circumstance, particularly if you do not take responsibility when the transactions are fraudulent. No customers have interest in allowing third party charges as they can pay via credit cards where transactions are insured. The only reasons you allow third party charges on your phone bills is, therefore, for the economic interest of your business.

I will give you 48 hours to resolve this matter after  which time I will make a complaint to the Ombudsman, contact the press and television and send them a copy of the email I've sent to your CEO, Robert Finnegan, and I will leave Three Mobile for another provider.

In the meantime, I have cancelled my direct debit with Three Mobile and I'll pay the bill only when this is rectified. 

[MarieMarie1]

Same thing is happening to me. I been on the phone with 3 since October 2024. 3 doesn't want to help me, dragging everything with same reassuring conversation and today 3 cut off my mobile service unless I continue to pay those fraudulent charges. I am going to Ombudsman now. 

[TJ990]

I just spent over an hour on the phone to three about charges of £133.46 being added to my account which somebody has spent via a third party, the account has a spend cap of £10, but for some bizarre reason the spend cap only applies to charges directly from Three and does not protect against this, depite earlier commenters being told it does by Three.

This is my childs mobile phone and everything is locked down to ensure no accidental purchases etc and this has all been fine until three created this financial loophole allowing third parties to charge to our accounts without explicit consent to opt in to using an account for such a service, and apparently they have no method to stop people using three pay against any of my numbers or the ability to switch the service off against my accounts, this seems ridiculous.  Three is essentially allowing my mobile account to be used like a credit card/bank account, but yet has no processes in place to block or dispute charges being made to it like you do with a Bank or Credit Card.

I went round and round in circles with them telling me to make sure we don't select three pay as a payment method despite repeatedly advising that the the transactions were not made by us and we are unable to change anything on the phone or anything else to stop fradulent transactions, they even tried to say some completely technically impossible things that coud have happened to try and excuse their lack of control over this service, and were constantly just trying to push me off to talk to the payment service used by the fraudster (boku.com) which the transaction was made through, eventually after me not accepting their deflections and lack of responsibility, they finally indicated they would raise an investigation into the transactions.  It shouldn't have required me to argue so long for this to happen, this should have been the first thing they did.

I have also raised cases with Boku and action fraud but I'm thinking that surely there must be some rules and regulations around providing this kind of financal service without explicit consent, or having effective controls in place to manage fraud, or to allow you to opt out or add a limit, as none of this seems to be in place when it comes to Three.  So I think my next step is going to be to look into whether there is anything that can be raised via ofcom, the financial ombudsman or the financial conduct authority as none of this feels like a responsible way for a company to manage this type of service.

I also was not able to change the number to avoid any future payments as they said if I changed the number it would affect any refunds that may come from the investigation, so they're literally leaving no options to control this.

I have 5 different services through Three and have been a customer for well over a decade at this point, but if I'm not going to have the ability to control what is allowed to be spent from my accounts and if three aren't going to implement processes to help protect against fraud, then I'll likely need to move to another provider, somebody mentioned that EE do have an option to opt out of 3rd party charges so I'll probably look into that next

[MarieMarie1]

I am leaving 3. 

[Thegod]

literally just happened to me

[JonathanB]

Hi @Thegod,

I'm really sorry to hear this. So just to clarify was your phone stolen, and you've found 3rd party charges subsequent to this? Did you report the phone as stolen to both Three and the police at the time? Did you get a crime reference number for the incident? Please let me know and I'll do my best to help you get more help.

Thanks,
Jonathan

[Thegod]

yes i did and the sim was supposed to be blocked but they were still able to make charges after the fact last month and this month. i had to deal with the exec office and got the money back as an 'exception' £99.77 both months but unless i change my number nothing else will be done. EE at least give you an option to block third party charges so to keep my number i am going to switch providers to stop future fraudulent charges. 

[rodarodaro]

Same. I don't know how to get it resolved... 

[Thegod]

i had to call and webchat numerous times it took about 3hrs and ended up having to reach out to exec office (it wouldnt let me post the email but you can find it via google or in this community thread) who were able to handle it but it was still just an ad-hoc fix and they are working in 3s best interest not the customer so keep that in mind. Kept repeating it wasn't a scam but fraudulent charges... 3s t&cs have changed since 2024 to protect them from all responsibilities in scenarios exactly like this. EE give you the option to bar third party charges(this is what i am doing) or you can change your number and stay with 3(but if it unfortunately happens again with your new number you are in the exact same problem) - i found these were my only 2 real solutions. 

[JonathanB]

Hi @rodarodaro,

I've sent you a reply to you on the new topic you started about this. Please get back to me there when you've got time.

Thanks,
Jonathan