WTF, I just got signed up to subscription sms service by clicking a link on a webpage on my android phone!!
[deleted]
Posted Nov 18, 2010, 10:34 AM UTC
1511
I don't see how android passed it on... however it should be illegal for them to charge you that without confirmation, especially in Europe.
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Yeah in some ways I love being a European. We rule!
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Im not sure about the technical side of this, but if you havent already paid the bill, if you explain this to your carrier you should be able to get them to block any further charges from the company and potentially credit you the charges already made.
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I know that on my Verizon account, any premium SMS trickery is already blocked. I actually tried to use one on purpose once, and found that I had to call Verizon and enable the premium SMS service (no charge) as a security measure. I was pretty impressed and as such decided to leave it blocked.
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While you may have clicked on it, you should contact your carrier and let them know you were tricked and it was fraud. Let them know you want the charges reversed. They'll give you some run around, but don't stand down. Be polite and calm, but be firm. If one person can't help, then say "I understand you may be limited in what you can do. Is there someone else at your company who DOES have the authority to help me? I would like to speak to them." Also asking them something like "You have to be an expert at this, I know you deal with it every day. If this happened to you or your friend, how would you handle it? What can I really do about this?" Being polite and appealing to their experience can often have great results.
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What probably happened is that you unknowingly visited a WAP page (they are indiscernible from normal web pages). It's a little-known feature of the WAP protocol that a request includes the MSISDN which makes identification possible and enables the so-called "WAP-Billing" through the carrier. Some apps include ads that open such pages. They should feature a "subscribe" button which you would have to click, although the article below mentions the suspicion that in some cases it's enough to visit the site.
The German IT-journal "c't" has an article about it. I don't know where you live, but the article describes the legal position of these contracts as dubious under German law. If you decide to fight these charges, you will probably face problems. Your carrier will deny responsibility and tell you that it is only collecting money on behalf of a third party, while the third-party may hide itself behind a layer of service providers and be a letterbox company.
Edit: more info
This sounds interesting and exploitable. Is there a way to hack this out of Android's webkit, or make this permission-based? How would one go about setting up a test page for this sort of thing?
[deleted]
Well, since every WAP page request transfers the MSISDN, and that is everything you need to collect through the carrier, every WAP page (e.g. wap.bild.de) works as a test page.
I found no info about disabling only WAP on an Android, but as I mentioned below, some carriers offer the option of opting-out of all third-party billing services (sadly mine doesn't), so you could always just call yours and try.
This must have been what happened. Im in Ireland and have already been onto regtel (the telecoms regulator here). They say that I need to contact zamano who run the scam to request a refund but I would imagine that I would be pissing into the wind. Knowing how I was scammed makes it a little less painful, thanks tebee :)
The article mentions, that some carriers disable future third-party billing on request. So you can at least try to prevent more incidents. Good luck!
Why is it that the names of scammy companies always seem to start with Z?
Just like legit companies want to be at the start of an address book, I'm guessing scam companies want to reside at the bottom!