Payforit Scams

ZXSpectrum · 15 Aug 2013 at 13:08

Has anyone come across this lately? My friend was scammed out of about £90 over a couple of months through it. It seems that anyone can sign you up for their service and you can become a victim without knowing.

Payforit is a micro payment management scheme but it seems like they have not thoroughly vetted their merchants. It seems that the scam is a merchant with a service (Something like ringtones, win £1000 a week, etc etc) can join Payforit and then get a list of random numbers and sign them up for the service/website without with no interaction from the owner of the phone. They seem to do a single transaction per month to go without knowing and then they take several.

Orange say its not their problem and tell you to go to Payforit (That does not have a contact email or number on their website) Then if you do get them you are told to contact the merchant and they will then basically lie and say that you must have signed up for the service or that someone must have used your phone to signup for the service.

Soooo how is this legal? Apparently anyone that uses Orange/Vodaphone/O2 are automatically added to the Payforit database and you have to request to be take off it. If you do get scammed you will be extremely lucky if you get your money back. If you contact orange and say you are not going to pay, they say they will cut you off.

While I understand this is, in theory, a nice little idea of how to pay for things without carrying cash about the service/merchants seem to be open to dodgy activity if there are little/no safeguards in place.

Myshra · 15 Aug 2013 at 13:26

Payforit is just the payment system isn't it? Fairly sure on payment startup through pfi the service provider has to send you an SMS with opt out details etc...Did your friend ask the service provider for proof he signed up?

The "payforit DB" I doubt exists, its a way to allow merchants to charge by adding the cost onto a customers bill.

ZXSpectrum · 16 Aug 2013 at 12:47

Nope not at all. He was told by Orange that he had to contact Payforit then when he did he was told that he had to contact the merchant that provided him the services and then the woman that answered she accused him of lying and on one of the subs was a quiz that he had apparently answered 7 out of 10 questions and another was a sub to win £10,000 but had to pay £4.50 a month to be subscribed. He is a decent lad and I am certain that he would not be bsing about this but apparently he is unable to get his money back.

Mr-White · 16 Aug 2013 at 13:17

Who actually took the money ?

MW

Myshra · 16 Aug 2013 at 19:02

OK so I looked into payforit a bit as I was concerned and I'm told there's a 2 step auth now for premium SMS - you NEED to reply to the originator SMS (the SMS should only be sent after you put the number into a website or if you initiate with a text) in order to start the service ( I can't confirm myself as I'm barred from premium rate services on all my test SIMs).

Both Orange AND payforit were right - the provider of the services is the quiz providing company, it's not them. The system is locked down tighter than a ducks butt thanks to the older companies that ruined premium sms services late last decade.