Saturday, April 18, 2009

T-Mobile Signed me up for a Ringtone Service!

I bought a cheap £10 phone for going into hospital (back operation). The mobile phone cost £20 including £10 worth of calls.

Been out of hospital over a month now and barely used the phone, on the ward there was notices saying no mobile phones, was told the last day I could actually use the mobile phone, so had been using their patientline phone most of the time!

Anyway, the other day was looking at the mobile phone messages as the wife took the phone with her as a backup (her mobile had a flat battery) and when she tried to use it found not enough credit which didn't make sense (should have been a few pounds left).

So I signed up for the online bill thing they have so I could see what the mobile phone was used for etc... and found these bill items:

06/04/2009 17:28:09 700003002 TMO Network SMSReceiveCBranded 1 Events £1.00
04/04/2009 17:21:43 700003002 TMO Network SMSReceiveCBranded Refund 1 Events -£1.00
03/04/2009 17:51:43 700003002 TMO Network SMSReceiveCBranded 1 Events £1.00
27/03/2009 12:20:09 4568 TMO Network MO SMS SMSReply0Branded 1 Events £0.00
27/03/2009 12:18:54 4568 TMO Network MO SMS SMSReply0Branded 1 Events £0.00

There are corresponding messages on the mobile phone says I've signed up for a weekly ringtone service for £1 a week and as you can see above twice I've been charged £1 for this service. Since I didn't download a ringtone I assume the first refund was because I didn't use the ringtone service.

I never signed for this service, the phone wasn't even used on those dates, so contacted T-Mobile who called me back. I understood the 4568 service is part of T-Mobile, and asked how did I become signed for this ringtone service? Wasn't told, but they would cancel the service and not send any more texts to sign me up!

I can only assume T-Mobile signed me up for this ringtone service without my permission, like I said this phone was for backup in hospital (didn't want to take an expensive phone with me). And other than adding the odd £10 top up so if something ever went wrong with our main mobile phones we'd have a spare in emergencies there was no need for ringtones for this phone.

Not impressed with T-Mobile on this one!