I had trouble with Vodafone recently.  I got my bill at the beginning of December, which showed a reverse charge text.  I disputed with Vodafone who said they cannot do anything about it, and I would have to take it up with the company concerned.  Vodafone then gave me their details, and I had to contact an 0870 number to complain!!  I protested strongly, however Vodafone said that it was the only way to take up the matter as they have no other number.

I called the company concerned, and it had an answerphone, so left a message to call me back.  Guess what, they didn't!!

I then called a week later, just before Christmas and complained.  I also stated that not only do I want to be refunded the cost of the £1.50 text, which he agreed would only be charged if I had sent a text in the first place, which is obvious from my vodafone bill that I didn't, but I also wanted to be re-imbursed for the phone call to the 0870 number.  The guy told me I was calling a "toll free" number, and then discovered I was chatting to a Canadian!!

He gave me the company e-mail address, and took mine, in order to update me, but haven't received anything yet.

Since the company concerned has been very unhelpful I have no hesitation about releasing their details on this site.

The are called Zime, and their text code is 87239.
Their number is 08701 262122.
Their e-mail is zimepl@zim.biz

Has anyone else here had any trouble with them?

ps - what a shame that www.zim.biz fails. Grrr

zim.biz is indeed unavailable. but looking at the register they are registered to Zim mobile in Canada, and have a contact phone number of +16137271397, which will probably be cheaper to call than 0870 (or I can use my just dial on my O2 inclusive minutes)

A very good point about Vodafone being liable.

I have a contract with vodafone to provide mobile phone services, and with A&L to provide banking services.

If A&L are asked by a company who I do not have any contact with whatsoever to set up a direct debit, and help themselves to my money then I'd complain to A&L and they would refund this money, and the company concerned would be under heavy investigation from trading standards, banking ombudsman, and any other regulatory bodies.  I would ask A&L to investigate why this money was taken, and for what service, and if it appears they set themselves up to deliberately con people they would be in serious trouble.

Yet Vodafone wash their hands of any liability despite having an arrangement with Zim to collect money on their their behalf as an agent.  However when one of the people who has been asked to pay queries this, instead of telling Zim that they won't collect the money, they collect it from me anyway, and still pay Zim the money because they asked for it, despite the complaint from me.  Since Vodafone see it as my problem, and something I should sort out with Zim, they don't take notice of the complaint and allow it to continue.

And of course people on PAYG who don't get any itemised billing and don't keep tabs on what credit is left won't even know they've been conned.

You might get good service from the other side of the pond with American/Canadian culture, but when these companies decide to operate overseas they certainly like to fit in with local customs such as Rip off Britain!!

I got a reply back saying that cheque processing usually takes 2 weeks, and to allow longer to receive the money.

Having looked at my calls made from my O2 handset, I have found I made the call on the 21st December, so I sent them back an e-mail stating that I have waited 3 weeks so far, and also billed them for my time at £10 per hour, plus the cost of my 0870 calls.

Wonder what they will make of that!!

If you feel strongly about your case, Shiggaddi, you can make a claim for your monies through the Small Claims Court.  All can be done on line by going to https://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk/csmco2/index.jsp.

Good luck.

Right, so perhaps we need ICSTIS, Ofcom, Otelo and the whole sorry bunch to accept that mobiles can (should, MUST) be opted out of such billing scams as the default.

Before I had a chance to compose another e-mail to zim, they e-mailed back to confirm that they would comply with my wishes, and also asked if I had the cheque for £1.50, to which I e-mailed back to confirm that I did.

They then said that the remaining £11.44 (£10 for using an hours of my time, and 18 mins to 0870 at 8p per minute) would also be paid.

They also apologised for the fact that I had waited 3 weeks for my first cheque and blamed the Christmas post for the delay (although my letter was dated 4 January, and was sent 1st class)

Anyway, as soon as the cheque arrives, I'll consider the matter closed.  Just wish more people would take a stand against companies like this, because their costs of settling my claim are about 10 times the amount they would have taken in profit had I just remained silent.

And Heinz, I'm not sure you are immune, because when I send a text and receive a delivery report, it confirms it reached the other persons phone (ie they have signal, and it's switched on), not that they have opened the text message.

Also, I don't even remember receiving this reverse charge text message, although I have received junk texts on my phones at various times, and just delete it, but they've never been reverse charged texts.

I did have a dispute with t-mobile last year who sent out a whole load of unsolicited texts from their t-zones wap site, costing around £30.  It took a while to dispute the matter, but it was only resolved when they realised the only way I could have requested these texts would have been to be logged into WAP at the time, and some of the texts were sent during the day, when WAP wasn't in the free minutes.  After they realised I wasn't on WAP on any occasion when a text was received, they re-imbursed me and after I told them that I have also had to write a letter to complain and waste alot of time, they agreed to give me a months free line rental as a gesture of goodwill worth £13.99.

So the story is, nobody is immune from reverse charge scamming, and it's even worse if you're on PAYG, as the average customer probably doesn't check their balance until they run out of credit, and won't know that some of the £10 they bought last time was used to fund an unsolicited reverse charge text.  I only found out, cos I have itemised billing on all my phones and they're all contract phones!!