Fraudulent call charges

Joedm45 · 14-07-2019, 11:54

Hello all

Just sharing my recent tale of woe with the landline, to be fair it is the first issue I've had in many years of being a VM customer.

Checked my recent charges on my account and saw a £5.10 charge for a 4 second phone call we did not make or having checked the received calls on the phone, neither was it received. No voicemail either so that rules out an automated answer to the call.

Phoned VM to report fraudulent use and they refused to refund, apparently nothing they can do as they get charged by the number owner so they have to charge me. They did however look into the number and gave me the company name it belonged to and told me to contact them for a refund.

Messamri Ltd was said company, looked them up and they are registered at a residential address in East London. Their website looks professional but I don't hold out much hope of a refund from them.

VM were as helpful as they could be but they're just sticking to procedure. My main concern is seeing as I reported this use as fraudulent and they are willingly going to pay this company for this call then surely they are crossing into a legal grey area and funding fraudulent activities.

Clearly I'm no expert in this and I'll be a fiver worse off this month, which is not the end of the world but it is the principle.

There's no guarantee this won't happen again however and VM couldn't block the number to stop it happening again.

This can be seen as a license to print money, none of the major phone operators seem to be able to stop this. You're just lucky if you get a good will gesture from them.

Sorry for boring you all but am I alone in this scenario?

SnoopZ · 14-07-2019, 13:09

I would not pay that, you need to escalate this to VM higher ups and threaten to leave, they're NOT being helpful in that reply.

Messamri is some service where if you hang up they will keep your place in the queue i believe.

Joedm45 · 16-07-2019, 13:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by SnoopZ

I would not pay that, you need to escalate this to VM higher ups and threaten to leave, they're NOT being helpful in that reply.

Messamri is some service where if you hang up they will keep your place in the queue i believe.

I completely agree, I'll try CS again and if I can get them to change their mind. It took an hour of waiting to get through last time so I'll need to muster some patience.

Ironically, Messamri have contacted me today via e-mail with an apology and an offer of a refund... Asking me for my bank details

Call me pessimistic but I don't really want to give that away for the sake of a fiver. Seeing as they replied I'll ask them to refund VM so VM can refund me.