Month: July 2018

Posted on

SB7 Threatened Legal Action

I learnt today that SB7 Mobile have reported several of my tweets to Twitter as being illegal.

Hello:

We are writing to inform you that Twitter has received official correspondence regarding your Twitter account, @Payforit_Sucks.

The correspondence claims that the following Tweets are illegal:

https://twitter.com/Payforit_Sucks/status/1001810694164099077

https://twitter.com/Payforit_Sucks/status/1001886151228182528

https://twitter.com/Payforit_Sucks/status/1001887291378368514

https://twitter.com/Payforit_Sucks/status/1004075931277889536

https://twitter.com/Payforit_Sucks/status/1007288491015901185

https://twitter.com/Payforit_Sucks/status/1008430324613877760

https://twitter.com/Payforit_Sucks/status/1009167746813382657

Twitter has not taken any action on the reported content at this time. We are only writing to inform you of content posted to your account which has been mentioned in a complaint.

We may be obligated to take action regarding the content identified in the complaint in the future. Please let us know by replying to this email as soon as possible if you decide to voluntarily remove the content identified on your account.

If you believe we have contacted you in error, please let us know by replying to this email.

This notice is not legal advice. You may wish to consult legal counsel about this matter.

For more general information on legal requests, please refer to the following Help Center article: https://t.co/lrfaq.

Sincerely,

Twitter

I have now responded to Twitter, as follows:

Hi

Thank you for informing me about this complaint. I have reviewed the tweets in question and cannot see that they break any UK or EU laws. They do serve to highlight widespread legitimate complaints about the company (SB7 Mobile) which I assume made the complaint. This company has been seeking to stifle valid and justified criticism both on Twitter and on Trustpilot. It is the nature of a platform like Twitter that such criticism will be made, and the normal response is for the company to answer the criticism, not to try to get the criticism removed by claiming it is illegal. I would be interested to know the reasons supplied by the complainant for these tweets being illegal.

I therefore do not propose to voluntarily remove these tweets, or to desist from posting further tweets of a similar nature.

However, I have no wish to cause problems for Twitter or to be in any way unreasonable. I understand that you have to protect Twitter’s interests, and if, after review, you hold these tweets to be illegal I will voluntarily remove these and a number of similar tweets which have not yet been reported.

Best regards

Paul

Update 6th October 2018

Tonight I received a solicitors letter from SB7 Mobile Ltd. I think they took exception to me identifying that the home addresses of the directors could be found on a document at Companies House.

Let me clear, I would not condone harassing the directors, but consumers may wish to send them copies of correspondence  sent to the company, in particular, letters before action in the Small Claims court.

There is much legitimate criticism, and I would much prefer SB7 Mobile Ltd to answer these criticisms rather that try to stifle them.

My problem is not just with the industry-mandated payment mechanic. It is to do with the way that certain companies are exploiting the vulnerabilities of this mechanic to take money from vulnerable consumers.

Posted on

SB7 Limited and Trustpilot

SB7 Limited (the company behind the Nuyoo ‘Payforit’ scam) are currently trying to get negative reviews removed by Trustpilot, for breaching Truspilot’s guidelines.
To be fair to Trustpilot, some of these reviews, posted by angry consumers in the heat of the moment did use bad language and terminology which might be hard to justify legally. I can understand consumers calling SB7 mobile thieves, but it is probably better to say that they took money without consent!

One reviewer whose review is reproduced below has repeatedly amended his review, to comply with Trustpilot’s guidelines, only to have it objected to again. This is now getting ridiculous.

The post, produced below, is a potentially valuable resource for consumers, which Trustpilot are now denying access to.

Whilst the accusation that a phone number was obtained ‘illicitly’ might be regarded as a serious accusation, it is substantiated by the fact that the company paid the full amount taken plus court fees in order to avoid having to defend their position in court. I can see little else in the review that justifies its removal. I certainly don’t see any ‘offensive remarks’. I invite Trustpilot to identify what the problem is, but am beginning to wonder how much they have been paid by SB7 Mobile to silence justified criticism.

An Update I hope this post helps someone regarding SB7.
I have suffered the shock of this company debiting my account to the tune of £300. I did manage to fix it though, here’s how.
Bit of history.
I first noticed this company had been debiting my bank account in March 2018, on closer inspection of my O2 invoices it became clear that this company had been debiting my account since 2016.
I had given my wife my old iPhone 4 after an upgrade to the then newer iPhone 7 sometime around 2015-16. My wife only wanted the phone for emergencies as she is a technophobe. I purchased her a simple sim with free text small amount data etc. she was very happy with it. Being a technophobe, I always advised my wife to simply delete any messages or text she didn’t recognize for security. I never felt the need to check my account with O2 as she rarely used it to phone many friends, it was only my phone I kept an eye on online. Until by chance I viewed my account for her number in March 2018. Ouch.
On viewing invoice history, it became apparent SB7 mobile Ltd had been debiting for texts sent to her number since 2016 @£4.50 per text? Sometimes 5 texts a month. Grrr. I was very angry.
The Fix (Tip: stay calm stay civil)
I composed a letter to this company demanding a refund for the monies debited from my account. I complained that they had obtained her mobile number illicitly and underhandedly.
I advised that if I had no reply within 7 days to my complaint I would pursue a claim through county courts. I had no reply from this company to the request sent.
I made a claim to the county court regarding this matter around 16th March 2018. On the 23rd March 2018, I received via post confirmation of my claim through the post from the County court.
The same day I also received the first answer from SB7 regarding my complaint with an offer of £180 as compensation without excepting responsibility. I refused stating that I had already started a court summons and that it was my intention to pursue full settlement of my account debits plus the expense of the court £325.27.
SB7 subsequently revised their offer to compensate for the full amount £325.27 to be paid via the post office message system. I agreed to this on the proviso that I would only close my claim with the courts on receipt of cash owed.
So, I now await the post office text message from SB7 mobile Ltd for a full refund.
Advice for you if you want to recover monies owed by unscrupulous companies.
Be polite but firm, state your complaint by e-mail, request a resolution, give 7 days’ notice. If you get no answer take out a court summons, you can do this online (£25).
Do a search google (for company info Directors etc) Glean a home address for a director or Directors and include this address within your county court claim.
Hope this info helps someone, if I can do it so can you!

in an ideal world I would we would all be checking our accounts regularly.
Unfortunately, most of us live in the real world where we are just trying to earn a living and get on with our daily lives. I, for example, have a joint account with my wife? There is no way I’m going to start challenging her for any expenses she makes? Lol
This isn’t about debiting large amounts of cash from individuals although this can happen as I have proved!
This is about understanding modern lifestyle and Volume? By these companies.
How they glean our phone numbers is irrelevant, but they have them? They have probably purchased them via a data exchange. Who knows.
I am betting nobody here with a complaint will bother to peruse a claim if it is of small amount let’s say £10 or even £20? Most people will text STOP to the relevant number and that will be that. A few of us will contact the company directly to complain and may receive compensation. But not many? These companies know that.
It’s the sheer volume of customers who have had this type of attack that matters? You can prove this searching google for company information and viewing the turnover? Unbelievable!
What’s needed is proper regulation by government and accountability by this type of company.
Update 22nd June 2018
I have today received an email from customer support at Trustpilot after a complaint from SB7 mobile regarding specific wording within my post. I have edited my post to comply with Trustpilot’s terms and conditions as requested.
Thank you Trustpilot your service is excellent I can’t praise you enough.
I can also advise that SB7 Mobile (or associated companies) Paid the debt in full after my complaint. Thank You.
Update
7th July 2018
Received another email from the Trustpilot compliance team advising my post contained offensive remarks?. Begining to see a trend here where these companies take offense at our postings and complain? they then raise a compliance issue in the hope Trustpilot remove the post?

I shall try to retrieve other reviews when they are posted and will repost them on here when they are removed from Trustpilot, so that readers can decide for themselves whether the removal was justified.

If your review is one of those that has been removed, please amend and resubmit it. Don’t use bad language and avoid calling the company thieves or crooks. Just state the facts and let them speak for themselves.

Posted on

Bodyin8 scam June 2018

In June 2018 there were a large number of reports about Bodyin8. The flow of complaints has abated somewhat, but the company is still the subject of complaints in February 2019.

They operate through a Level 1 provider called Tap2Bill who are responsible for the 83463 shortcode which is associated with quite a few of these scams.

At the time of writing they are not showing on the PSA Number checker. However the customer service number given in the sign up text is 03300538661. This number appears to belong to Mobile Payment Support, a company to which Bodyin8 have contracted out their customer service. MPS appear to be near impossible to deal with, so the advice is to deal directly with the company, using the Small Claims procedure.

The company behind Bodyin8 is Well Fitness Ltd (Company number 09994445). The registered address is : Onega House, 112 Main Road, Sidcup, Kent, United Kingdom, DA14 6NE.

I am not currently aware of any email address which can be used for Bodyin8, so it may be necessary to send correspondence by post to their registered address.

Update January 2020 – Please Read First

Communication with Well Fitness over the past year has yielded some interesting information, which I’ hope shortly to be in a position to reveal. Do not take legal action against Well Fitness Ltd at this time. The company is in severe financial difficulty, and although you will win your case and get judgement, you are unlikely to ever be paid. We suggest that instead, you take action against the Level 1 provider, Tap2Bill Ltd, and against your network.

A search for CCJs shows the following results for Well Fitness Ltd:

Advice if you’ve been affected by the Bodyin8 scam.

Unfortunately, the way that this works is that you have to contact Bodyin8 and get them to stop the subscription. You should also ask for a full refund of any money they have taken. You are entitled, under Section 45(3) of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 to insist that this refund is made back to the account from which it was taken. Under section 45(4) of the same act, any refund needs to be made within 14 days of it being offered and accepted.

If Bodyin8 do not co-operate or do not refund in full, you can then revert to your own network, and ask them to take action under the Mobile Operators Code Of Practice for the management and operation of PFI (Payforit).  O2, EE, Three and Vodafone also have their own procedures for handling ‘Payforit’  and these are linked on this page which gives more detailed advice on how to proceed if you are refused a full refund.

Ultimately if a full refund is refused Bodyin8 have paid out when faced with the possibility of a claim in the small claims court.  Legal action, through the small claims court, is likely to be the fastest and most successful approach to resolving a dispute with Bodyin8. They don’t dispute that they have taken your money. Ultimately they have to prove that you knowingly consented to the payments or make a full refund.

You should also complain to the Phone-paid Services Authority  (PSA) about the unauthorised charges. The regulator will not handle individual cases, but will take action if specific companies generate a disproportionate number of complaints. PSA have informed us that they are already investigating this company.

Sample reports of the Bodyin8 ‘Payforit’ scam

With the demise of Payforit, and a PSA consultation on a new Code of Practice for Phone-paid Services, we have decided to launch the Phone-paid Services Consumer Group (PSCG). You can visit the new website by clicking here. IF you need help, please contact us via the contact link on the new website.
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