Unauthorised Charges by Boku on My Daughter’s Phone Bill – Advice Needed

[Nkosi]

Hi everyone,I’m posting here to raise awareness and seek advice about an issue I’ve encountered with unauthorised charges on my daughter’s mobile phone bill.

I recently noticed extra charges on her phone account, which is under my name and managed by me. Her monthly bill is capped, so it shouldn’t exceed the contracted amount. After contacting the provider (Three), I discovered that these charges were for Boku.com, a third-party payment service that works with my provider.

The charges were for PlayStation Network services, but neither I nor my 12-year-old daughter own a PlayStation or have a PlayStation Network account. Importantly, my daughter is a minor and cannot legally enter into such agreements. Even if she attempted to subscribe to anything, it would require my authorisation, which never happened.

What’s worse is that we had never heard of Boku before this, never signed up for their services, and were never notified of any agreements or charges.

This situation raises several concerns for me:

1. How was Boku able to authorise charges without explicit consent from me as the account holder?

2. Why wasn’t I notified about these transactions before they were billed?

From my research, it seems this could violate UK consumer protection laws, including:

• The Consumer Rights Act 2015, which ensures protection from unauthorised charges.

• The Payment Services Regulations 2017, which require clear consent for payments.

• The UK GDPR, which protects personal data from being used without explicit permission.

I’ve already contacted Boku to demand an immediate refund and assurance that my daughter’s phone number will not be used for their services again. However, I wanted to share my experience here in case others have faced similar issues and to ask:

1. Has anyone else experienced unauthorised charges from Boku or similar third-party services?

2. What steps did you take to resolve the issue?

3. Do you think I should escalate this to the Financial Ombudsman or the ICO if I don’t get a satisfactory response?

I’ll keep this post updated with any progress, but for now, I want to warn others to check their phone bills carefully—especially for numbers used by children.Thanks in advance for any advice or similar stories you can share!

[JadeF]

Hey there.

Welcome to the Three Community Page @Abiksy 

You can find the details needed to contact Boku here. 

Thanks, Jade

[Chazlow]

Hi the information you have given is no good, when I go to make a complaint of the same thing other people refer to it’s not in English for the reason of complaint. Also my daughter has a cap on her bill therefore should stop third parties making additional payments on her bill. I have never heard of this company before until today when I also discovered an additional £140 cost on her monthly bill. 

The payments are for PlayStation and if payments are made, it goes through via debit card not phone bill. I have not received any receipts and looked at our ps history, last payment being in 2024 via debit card. 

playstation won’t help has it went through boku and boku is hard to get contact details for.

do you have a contact number? 

[Sarah86]

Three have given me this number 0808 120 2341 for boku just now

[Chazlow]

You can ring it, but it’s just an automated message telling you to contact them via email and I’ve emailed them and still waiting for a response.

just make sure you go on to bonus and block the number being used. Log everything you have done and raise a complaint 

[PeteG]

Hello there. 

Welcome to Three Community. 

I don't know the number for Boku PlayStation charges, however you can view and manage Boku services on their Support Page. There might be additional contact information available once you're on the Portal. 

Pete.

[Chazlow]

Hi, I have done all that and raised a complaint with three now. There is a section of their form not in English, so is hard to understand what department I need to raise it with. 

it’s annoying as I never knew of this website until my bill came through and I know I never made the said payments as I was in the opticians with my kids from the allocated timeframe. 

I have also checked my daughter’s phone and no text was received with a code for completing the transaction, it’s very annoying that this has happened as it’s a cost that should not have happened. Yes I did place parental restrictions in place, but what’s the point if third parties are allowed to increase the bill? This clearly needs to be looked into as I’m not the only victim this has happened to, reading the comments. 

[JonathanB]

Hi @Chazlow,

You may also want to check into Boku's portal here: https://customer.boku.com/login

My understanding is that you can use this to look into transactions, and also disable your number from being used with their payment services in future.

I appreciate where you're coming from that you couldn't find a PIN text, but this could be deleted from your phone. My understanding is that when a transaction is added to the bill individual transactions, or the first one in cases of regular subscriptions need to be verified in this way.

Thanks,
Jonathan

[Clairedin]

I don’t believe this to be the case given the number of people adamant they have not been sent a pin/ top. I checked my daughter’s phone and given the number of transactions would have expected some evidence and there was none. She has never used text messages so I think it is fraud. 

[Chazlow]

Hi, yes I have had a look at the transactions, although not helpful as there references does not provide intel to anything to what was purchased through PlayStation and I have blocked the number for future transactions happening again.

It does state that text messages should be given to confirm confirmation but this is not the case as we never received a text and I looked on the PlayStation transaction history and nothing was made since 2024. There are many people also stating text messages were never sent on various sources including this thread, with some not having access to a PlayStation, so I do not believe this happens. Clearly this needs looking into, if you’re preparing to partnership with them as this is unacceptable. Or at least provide us with all third parties you allow to increase the bills with, so everyone is aware who they are, so they can decide if they want to prevent the transactions happening in the future. 

What other third parties do you partner up with to allow them to increase the bill so this can be looked into, while we are on the subject? 

also, the purchase was made on the day, we weren’t even home as we were at the opticians at the time it states the transaction was made. 

I have opened a complaint with three so hopefully will get resolved as Boku is not responding to me. So hopefully it will get resolved.

[Adamski]

Literally just had this problem today, bill came in at 109 pound on my daughters phone, 100 pound worth of PlayStation charges from boku.com. Phoned three they couldn't help me so told me to contact boku. My daughter doesn't own a PlayStation like yourself was very shocked to see that this morning.