[SOLVED] Cell C's indifferent attitude to content charge fraud

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ajax

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So I am the latest victim of fraud from a WASP who started charging me for "content" since November on a Cell C contract line of mine. Over R300 was stolen. Just want to give a summary here of the schlep Joe Soap has to go through and the couldn't-care-less attitude of Cell C who authorised the removal of funds from my account.

I discovered last week that from 24 November a daily charge of R7 was being taken off my account. The simcard has been, and still is, inside an old Nokia handset dating back to 2001 (those ones with the aerials sticking out). According to my bill, the "subscription charge" was taken by MIRA014, which Cell C says belongs to Mira Networks.

I called Cell C. They say, sorry, we can't help, we act like a bank with regards to your account and if instructed by a 3rd party, take money from your account. We "can't" verify if the transaction is legit.

Cell C referred me to MIRA networks. Their response: sorry, we only manage a billing platform for content providers. If we receive an instruction to do a deduction we "can't" verify if the transaction is legit.

MIRA referred me to Kulaville who is the actual WASP or so-called "content provider". Their telephone number (010 5008164), surprise surprise, just cuts off when you call it. So I emailed them asking for proof of subscription which they sent the next day, yay. Here follows an image of the relevant part with my MSISDN blanked out.

kulavilles_proof_mod0.jpg

Continued next post.
 
I complained through WASPA and all they did was to lodge an unsubscribe request. They failed to even obtain a proof of subscription from Kulaville.

I told the person at Cell C I was dealing with that I can prove that I didn't make a data connection, neither did I send an sms. I sent the so-called "proof of subscription" from Kulaville to this person at Cell C (I'd rather not name and shame individuals on this forum) with my rebuttal as follows:
There are several problems with this document:
1) It claims that an internet connection was made on the said date.
Rebuttal: If you look at my itemised billing, there were no data (internet) connections made.
In addition, the IP address, 41.48.16.53, is a Cell C IP address (I know this by doing a reverse IP lookup), therefore Cell C would be able to verify that no MSISDN of mine initiated this data connection.

2) It claims that a Nokia 6303 was used.
Rebuttal: I don't own such a phone. Since the data connection was done on a Cell C IP address and we have the date and time of this connection as well as the IMEI of the handset provided by Kulaville, Cell C would be able to determine if the IMEI number corresponds indeed to a Nokia 6303 and if such a handset made the data connection.

3) It claims that I opted in by sending an sms from my handset to 43890.
Rebuttal: If you look at my itemised billing no such sms was sent.

Cell C's response:"You should send Kulaville your itemised billing and ask for a refund".
Hold on a sec, you want me to send my confidential call records to fraudsters? Hellooooo??!

All in all I hold Cell C responsible since I pay them for my telecommunication services. I entrust Cell C with the security of my MSISDN and its account. Therefore if a customer of theirs is being defrauded, I would expect Cell C to make this a case of highest importance and to initiate punitive steps against all parties involved to prevent other customers of theirs being defrauded in a similar way - other customers who perhaps don't have the resources to expose or prove such fraud.
 
Re: Cell C's indifferent attitude to content charge fraud

When I went through similar **** like this, I had to go to the wasp to get my refund (which i eventually got, refunded to my personal bank account)
 
Wow I hate big corporates. Customers must just pay and pay and pay and get nothing but screwed over. I hope this gets resolved.

The scum of a company who is stealing your money should get charged with theft - whats the difference between that and mugging you?

The only saving grace each cell provider has in this country is that each other one sucks just as bad.
 
MIRA networks just passes the buck back to Cell C

I lodged a complaint on hellopeter against MIRA networks, the "billing platform"

They claim in their response that my itemised billing will not reflect WAP usage. I say nonsense. Unless it is possible to visit WAP subscription sites for free with Cell C?

They also conveniently ignored the fact that my itemised billing shows no sms was sent (to anybody for that matter) to Kulaville - the sms being the so-called confirmation of subscription pin code.

I have complained to WASPA twice requesting a refund and punitive measures against the parties involved, and each time they just respond with something like you have been unsubscribed.

I guess the National Consumer Commission and the SAPS is next on my list.
 
It would be so easy for any of the networks to allow you to opt in (or opt out) of the VAS services, either entirely or on a request by request basis.
 
******99 said:
It would be so easy for any of the networks to allow you to opt in (or opt out) of the VAS services, either entirely or on a request by request basis.
Click to expand...
What and lose there % of all this revenue LOL.
No ethics in this business.
 
I think all networks are like this, but when I had the same problem when I was on MTN, I eventually went to WASPA and they forced the offending company to give me a refund (be warned it takes 6 months to a year for the whole process to play out). That said I did complain on Hellopeter and MTN did give me a partial refund.
 
Dear valued customer,

It has been brought to our attention that you are not satisfied with our service.We have 1000?s of happy customers and therefore it saddens us to hear of your grievance, as customer satisfaction is of the utmost importance to us.


If you would like to discuss this matter further, please do not hesitate to contact us again on 010 500 8164 or alternatively send an email to [email protected] (as provided previously by our customer care center), and a customer support agent will attend to your query as soon as possible.

We would be happy to once again go through the subscription process with you.
 
Kulaville said:
If you would like to discuss this matter further, please do not hesitate to contact us again on 010 500 8164 or alternatively send an email to [email protected] (as provided previously by our customer care center), and a customer support agent will attend to your query as soon as possible.
We would be happy to once again go through the subscription process with you.
Click to expand...

No subcription took place.
As per your post, on 11-01-2013 12:05 PM, my itemised billing shows no data connections and no sent sms's for the entire month. No interaction took place.

You will next be hearing from the following institutions:
SAPS,
National Consumer Comission,
ICASA and
Consumer Watch

I will eventually reach the right person at Cell C to help me as I have contacts in the cellular industry and we will then prove that even the IP address you claim I subscribed from was not used by me.
 
I finally have someone at MIRA who is responding and not sitting behind a "customer service" email. I will rather not name names.

So MIRA claims that I browsed on a handset I don't own to Kulaville's site. They claim that I confirmed subscription to their "service" through WAP only and that no confirmation sms was required to be sent by me to get subscribed to the service.

Can someone please comment. Is it possible to subscribe to "content" by only browsing on your phone with a GSM or 3G connection?

This person at MIRA says further that my itemised billing will not reflect WAP usage :wtf:
So browsing on a Nokia 6303 is free? :D
 
I hope you get damages or something awarded to you for all the ridiculous effort that's required to get these motherfsckers to sort you out.

We need some good precedent set- go for it!

Keep us posted.
 
WASPA has come back saying Kulaville's response is unsatisfactory. My complaint has now been escalated to the formal complaints team. And I now also have a normal human who I can email at WASPA rather than their unsubscribe email address.

No response from MIRA so far regarding the "free browsing". Time to resend my mail...

Budza said:
I hope you get damages or something awarded to you for all the ridiculous effort that's required to get these motherfsckers to sort you out.
Click to expand...

I have considered giving up cause I have lost several hours of sleep over this. It's not about the R300+ they stole. It's about the principle, the injustice that's occurring and most likely there are many other victims.
 
I have hit a brick wall with MIRA.
They insist that:
1) WAP browsing on your handset is not free
2) Such browsing activity is not reflected on an itemised bill.
/sigh

They further insist I must get my "WAP usage" from Cell C.

So I requested it from Cel C:
Hi there
Could I please get a detailed record of my WAP usage for November for my number <removed by Ajax>.
Click to expand...

And the response is, and I quote directly without modifications...
Thank you for Contacting Cell C.
Kindly be advised you are subscribe from company calls Mira networks for cancellation you can contact them on this number 0861106472,be advised it will be chargeable call when you call them.
Time frame 8am-5pm
Monday - Friday
Regards
<named removed by Ajax>
Written Correspondence Department <ROFLMAO :D >
[email protected]
Click to expand...

For now, I will back off until we hear from WASPA.
 
Progress...

Guys, I am ecstatic to announce that I just received an email stating that Sprint Media/Kulaville is offering me a full refund!! :D :whistle: :twisted:

Here the email, and note again I remove names as my fight is not with specific persons as such, but with big corporates, who happen to be represented by human interfaces.

But the plot thickens nevertheless...

Dear Mr <removed>,

We have tried to contact you a number of times via telephone unsuccessfully, in order to discuss the matter further. We believe that you will not be back in the country until the 7th of February.

We would like to offer you a full refund of R 385.

Kindly provide us with the following bank details:

- Bank account holder:
- Bank name:
- Bank account number:
- Account Type: Savings/Cheque
- Bank branch:
- Branch code:

The refund will be effected within 7 to 10 working days from receipt of the details.

This refund offer does not in any way or form constitute an acknowledgement of liability, it is purely a gesture of goodwill. Upon acceptance of this offer this matter will be deemed successfully resolved.

Yours sincerely,

<name removed>
Customer Services Manager
Sprint Media S.L.
Centro de Negocios Puerta de Banus, Edif. E. Oficina 33.
29660 Nueva Andalucia, Marbella, Malaga, Spain
Click to expand...

It would appear someone has started to become very worried...

WASPA came back earlier today saying:
If indeed there are no DATA charges on the itemized billing for the day of 24 November 2012 we will be able to escalate your complaint to a formal procedure.
Click to expand...

What would you guys do? Take the refund and call it a day?
 
I have decided not to take the refund. (For one, where is the interest? It's still theft, just theft reduced as this money would have been left in my bond account accruing interest.)
I will first let the WASPA "formal complaint" procedure run its course.

Meanwhile I have been doing some investigations using a prepaid sim of mine.

It seems very easy to trick someone into subscribing. For example, from my desktop I can go to a landing page of Kulaville
An image of the page is shown below:

kulaville_whatsapp_landing_page.jpg

So I entered my prepaid number. I then received the following sms:
Click http://bzm.tv/r/4A7B1C4B to continue
Click to expand...

Copying the URL to my desktop yields the following page:

whatsapp_confirm_cell_edit2.jpg

After clicking "Confirm" I got the welcome sms from Kulaville. Presently the simcard is suspended (by Cell C) because I haven't loaded airtime in a month or two. Would be interesting to see if Kulaville/MIRA networks are able to make deductions in this state. Will wait until tomorrow to see.

The above is quite alarming. It would be easy to trick someone you hate into subscribing:
1) You can go to the landing page from an internet cafe
2) You can enter e.g. your ex girlfriend's cell number or anyone you hate.
3) She clicks on the URL in the link that she will receive via sms
4) She clicks "continue" and she will be subscribed.

One may argue that she "should not have" clicked on the URL in the sms and that she "should have" read the confirmation page carefully, but hey, these days everyone wants to use, and continue to use, whatsapp.

By the way, I also learned that Kulaville and Mobmatic are one and the same entity. The page www.mobmatic.com looks exactly the same as www.kulaville.com
 
I know someone who used to work for a wasp, she tells me I would not believe how deceptive these companies are. Her job was to bait people on those online dating sites/mobile services. Dodge.
 
Further to my thread title, see the Integrat thread where initially a VAS rated telephone number for a WASP was given to a Cell C subscriber to call if he/she has been defrauded by them.

Not only does your airtime get stolen by the WASP, but you have to buy more airtime to call them and while you are holding on for them you get billed VAS rates.

Only after complaining about the number not working did an "updated" telephone number surface.

I have received a reference number from WASPA for the "formal complaint".
 
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