Jamster Again!

Yep fell for it myself. Fancied a good ring tone on my fone. Ordered it from Jamster and decided to pay via BT click & buy. #18 for Underworld's excellent track Two Months Off. Not what I expected to pay. I have taken up with BT click & buy but two questions remain.

1. Why does it come up so high on Google's search for ringtones. Google is a trusted brand name on the internet so why does Jamster come towards the top of the list. Google has control over this and, as such are compliant. Not a good PR story for one of the world's most popular search engines. Effectively this is trafficking a young market requirement to site that is a rip off.
2. Why is such a good brand like BT associated with this rip off site?

Will inform if I get any resolution.

Stevie D
[ September 27, 2006 ]

Jamster? Flycell? How many are there?

Hi, Alan! I had exactly the same experience as you. I'm actually dealing with it right now, as we speak (chat?)! It started when I saw a free ringtone deal from Flycell. It was a 7 day free trial, right? Wrong!!! About 2 days after I signed up for it, my son said "Oh no, mom! Cancel that right now!" So the next day, that's what I did.......wrong again! It seems I cannot cancel it! Even though I never registered anything with them or provided anything but my cell phone number (sound familiar?), they will not cancel this subscription! I then contacted Mblox, who's name shows up on my Cingular account. They gave me instructions on how to contact Flycell to cancel this. This hasn't worked either! I then complained to the BBB about Flycell. Then finally got Cingular to cancel it and have my phone so it won't receive, or send, any text messages. BTW-I was receiving text messages form them (Flycell) at all hours of the night. Even some pretty raunchy ones! This worked for last month. Yep, I thought it was all taken care of! NOT! I just received another bill from Cingular, and guess what? Yep! More charges from Flycell (Mblox)! If you ask me, Jamster and Mblox are just as responsible, as they continue to allow this, knowing that it's going on. If there is ever a class action law suit for this....count me in!!! Thanks for letting me vent. Now I have to go call Cingular again for this bill...... Wish me luck!

Cleo
[ September 26, 2006 ]

Scam by T-Mobile

I received the following bill from T-Mobil & they said that they can't do anything about it:

• DadaMobile
• Flycell Content
• Mobile Sidewalk (2times)
• ThumpPlay
• Blinko (2times)
• Mobile Messenger ( 4times)

This is within a month and Tmobil refused to to anything about it. They just said it is too bad for you and there is no guarantee that these illegal billings can be stopped in the future.

Dat Tran
[ September 24, 2006 ]

Response to "Deep Throat's" idea to change your phone number...

Changing your phone number is only a temporary solution at best. Since most of these scammers have gotten our cell phone numbers illegally, and in the case of Blinko, without us ever even giving them the number, it stands to reason that they will simply and easily get our NEW numbers also.

Here is what worked for me:

1. Attempt to unsubscribe by sending a text message to the appropriate #. The message should say STOP or someting similar, acording to the company who is sending the messages. For Blinko, I had to send (all in one message): STOP QUIT END UNSUBSCRIBE CANCEL
2. I contacted my phone company and told them I was contesting the charges, i.e. I refused to pay them. I paid my bills minus the amount of the Blinko charges. I will never pay a company for a service or product that I did not ask for. Refusing to pay also puts the ball in the phone companies court, instead of letting them be lazy and say "It's not our fault, go talk to Blinko."
3. I filed a complaint against the company (in my case, Blinko) with the FTC (www.ftc.gov). You could additionally file the complaint against your phone company, although I did not choose to do this.
4. Luckily, John O'Malley from Verizon has been on the case and has helped me out a lot. If Verizon is your phone company, I'd strongly suggest contacting him (his info is on this list of Stories somewhere).
5. If possible, DO NOT DELETE the text messages from the offending company. Ideally, take photographs of them, straight off of your phone's screen.
6. Check through this list of Stories for information on class action lawsuits against these scammers.
7. I also had Verizon completely turn off all text messaging and SMS messaging services on my cell phone.

If this seems like a lot of work, it's really not that bad, considering all that I (and others) have had to go through to figure it all out in the first place :)

Brian D
[ September 20, 2006 ]

M-Cube - Mobile Messenger SCAM

My son wanted a cell phone. So to teach him responsibility, I got him a prepaid Boost mobile phone and he buys the prepaid cards. Well after about 1 week his opening balance was down to $5 from $25—I gave him crap for talking too much. Well 2 days after he got the phone he began getting $5.99 charges every week. We called Boost and they researched the charge, said they have nothing to do with it, and gave us M-Cube to call. Well I called them and they sent a cancellation notice to mobile messenger and the same day we get confirmation his balance is swiped another 5.99. How is this legal and who can stop this fraud???? After $50 and bogus charges, I'm about to throw the phone away.

Rob
[ September 20, 2006 ]

Canceling Blinko/Buongiorno

I just went through the same 3 months billing. I found this... On the Blinko website, http://www.blinko.com/index.html, see Term and Conditions: TERMINATION OR CANCELLATION OF A SERVICE To cancel your subscription Services, please: send a text message with the text "END", "CANCEL", "QUIT", "STOP" or "UNSUBSCRIBE" to the short code for any of your Services (e.g. 42222 or 69069); or contact customer service by clicking here.. Termination shall become effective at the end of the billing period in which you give your notice of termination. ::: Or you can contact Customer Care on this same website (see bottom menu).

RonR
[ September 19, 2006 ]

What a Ripoff

I noticed that something has been wrong with my bills for the past couple of months. When I received my Cingular bill on Feb. 25, 2006, I notice that the Total Amount Due was way too much. After a long search in my bill, I came to the DirectBill Download Detail. There were 8 charges on Jan 25th with a total charge of $10.81 each. So that's $86.48 charged in 1 day from a merchant name m-Qube Inc. with a description under Ringtones or Image!! I then looked at my last bill from December. I notice the same name m-Qube Inc. They had charged me $11.63 for a ringtone or image. It is the shitiest thing ever.

Josh Blight
[ September 19, 2006 ]

A Bloody Ripoff

They have stollen over $100 of mine and I got nothing with it. It is such a ripoff, it should not be allowed in this country.

Jeff
[ September 18, 2006 ]

Same Crap Different Person

I just got off the phone with Cingular who tried to give me a PHONE NUMBER. At that point (after dealing with this same problem for over 2 weeks) I lost my cool told her I wasnt calling any f'in body and that she could cancel my account and credit my money back to my credit card. I am fixing to call them back. If that doesn't work they can buy themselves a new 12 foot tall plate glass window in the mornng when they get to the store.... Moral of the story: DONT MESS WITH SOMEONE WHO JUST TOLD YOU THEY ARE MENTALY DISABLED AND HAVE VERY SHORT PATiENCE when being literally ROBBED at bank point. Kip

ZuluMagoo
[ September 13, 2006 ]

M-Qube/Cingular Ripoff

To keep a long story short, I was told by Cingular that the extra $33.56 in M-qube charges from last months bill would be credited to this months bill. It's not, and to top it off there is another $1.99 charge from M-qube. These people need to be stopped, their check will be $35.55 light, let them cancel me, they'd be doing me a favor...

PO'ed
[ September 13, 2006 ]

mBlox Scam

Like John, I was also getting these charges from mBlox and Cingular told me that I would have to call them to stop the charges but I refused telling Cingular that my relationship was with them. They took the charge off the May bill but it appeared again on my July, August and then September bill! Cingular told me that there was nothing I could do as mBlox just texts the messages to my or my daughter's phone. They told me that if I didn't want the service I had to type in "stop" and that if I did'nt answer exactly that way, for instance I just can't say no or nothing at all, that mBlox would take that as a yes and bill me anyway.

This is nothing more than a scam to rip people off and they can't continue to get away with this. The previous writer, John, who had a similar experience as me, said he would go to another carrier, but I have news for you, they all operate this way. It's sneaky and the phone companies act like they can't do anything about it, buy they know damn well that they are giving these scammers our cell phone numbers. It's unfortunate that we pay so much for their services and that they would betray their customers like this by doing business with such companies as mBlox or Jamster.

Genie
[ September 7, 2006 ]

Jamster Frustration! (Melbourne, Australia, with Vodadone!)

About 5 or 6 months ago an idiot (who used to be my friend!) entered my number on that stupid Jamster website. At first I didn't notice as my credit (which I only got about $30 for 2 months) quite rapidly whittled away. This month was different. I just bought credit when I got these four sms's from Jamster. I then tried to call a friend and I was warned that I should recharge soon because I only had $4 of credit!! I went to the vodafone website to see how I possibly could have spent $26 in the space of 1-2 minutes. Each sms costs $5... 5 FREAKIN DOLLARS? THATS 1/6 OF MY CREDIT. The other 6 dollars were supposed to be for connecting to WAP (GPRS), which I never did. I called them up first, and asked them nicely to cancel these sms's, but I was told I need to take it up with Jamster. I got angry, and I told Vodafone that I'm a lawyer (I'm not, but I know the law), and that these unsolicited charges on my phone were illegal. Whoever owns Jamster must be raking in millions from this and should be stopped. I'm not exactly sure what to do from now, I can't even afford to sue them!

Lawrence
[ September 6, 2006 ]

I Got Charged and It Said It Was Free

I got The Girlfriend magazine and it said get a free Jamster ringtone, so I texted "free1" to the Jamster number and they gave me a link in the SMS. I clicked on the link and it took me to the internet on my phone. I downloaded the song and that would only have cost me a couple of dollars. but then Jamster called me a member and charged me $5 joining fee and $10 for the song I downloaded. I only got my credit that day and the total credit was worth $20. I checked my balance after I got the song and my balance was now 60 cents. The stupid Jamster song cost me $19.40 in total. What a rip off!

Leah
[ August 31, 2006 ]

Blinko Spam

My wife's Sprint cell phone started getting a $13.98 charge for Blinko on the June bill. I called Sprint and insisted that they give a credit and cancel the service. I got the credit on my July bill but there was also a new Blinko charge on the July bill. I called Sprint again and asked for the same credit and cancel. Got the credit but a new charge appeared on my August biil. I called Sprint again today. I again asked for a credit for August and to have the Blinko service cancelled. Each time I have called Sprint they wanted me to call Blinko to get the refund and to cancel. I refused as my relationship is with Sprint and Sprint is the company presenting the bill. My recommendation is to not let Sprint off the hook and to insist that they address the issue. You have no leverage with Blinko. Your leverage with Sprint is to drop their service and switch to another carrier. Because this is the third time, I also put in US mail a letter to the Sprint chairman relating the sorry details. We will see if this finally cures the situation. It is hard to believe that Sprint and the other carriers enter into relationships with such scummy businesses. They are destroying their relationships with their customers in the process.

John
[ August 29, 2006 ]

Only Three Days To Hit Me

I activated a Cingular Pay as you Go phone on 8/23/2006. On 8/26/2006 I received a text message from Blinko that didn't make any sense to me, I had never heard of them nor did I understand what the message was about, so I ignored it. Three days later when I checked my balance, $7.99 had been deducted that I could not explain. When I called Cingular, they explained that it was a charge for ring tones. I told them that I never ordered any ring tones and they gladly reversed the charges without any question. When I asked how my account could be charged for something that I did not order, the Cingular rep replied that she did not know how this could happen. After ended the call I really began to get suspicious. So I did an on line search and found this site. Man was I tweaked at this point. I put in a request with Blinko's Customer Care to find out why they charged me for a service I never authorized and demanded that they put a stop to the charges, I also filed a complaint with the Florida Attorney Generals Office. Thanks so much for the information.

Mark
[ August 28, 2006 ]

Cingular Wireless Rip-Off

Most of the stories I read here are the same as mine. I too purchased a phone for my 14 year old son at Xmas. He asked if he could download a ring tone for 2.99. I allowed him to do that. Ever since then, every single month I have subs charges from either Blinko, M-Cube or Goldstar. Not only are they a fraudulent subscription, there are usually 4 or 5 charges of anywhere from 5.99 to 10.99 every single month.

Cingular always refunds my charges, but of course it doesn't show up until the next bill. It is easy to get the credits as these cell phone companies know they are acting fraudulently. The sad part is they are getting away with this. Most people probably don't pay attention to their bills. If they did, they too would be in the same boat as us. I think if everyone would file a complaint with the BBB, maybe the FCC, attorney general, etc. will get involved and place tighter regulations on these thieves. That's all they are, thieves. And we are allowing them to continue when we do nothing. Also, you need to contact your cell provider and request 3rd party blocks on your numbers. I did this but haven't received my bill yet. Hopefully it works. According to the BBB, the cell providers only have one week to respond to the complaints. Again, if everyone would do this... We could overcome.

Cat
[ August 24, 2006 ]

Help in getting the FCC to investigate Blinko and all it's AKA's

Short version of an all day telephone marathon:

Our service is with AllTel. Billing # 1-800-255-8321. $10.00 in May, June, July, and August. We checked with AllTel and were informed of the charges for Premium Access Usage Charges, for $9.99. The charges will remain on AllTel until Blinko stops the billing. We were told to go to blinko.com and stop the billing. The site kept asking us if we were sure we wanted to cancel and we said yes. The site kept asking the question until it knocked us off the site. Called AllTel and was given the customer care number for Blinko 800-971-2271. The site advised they could not stop the billing and we should go to the internet site. We relayed the story of how the site would knock us off. Then they informed us this was our problem. I started to explain, our phones do not have text messages and we could not get a text from them. If we cannot get a text then they cannot bill. I was then told: there are other ways to get this billed. Anyone could have put in our cell number and Blinko will not verify that is your phone number.

The billing cycle starts with AllTel and will not end. Blinko advised this is not their fault. The fault lies with AllTel because AllTel billed us without verifying the charges with us. Went back to AllTel, they will not credit, refund, or stop the billing because they are a third party billing company. It is Blinko's fault. We verified not having text messaging service and we verified we did not receive a text message and we did not send a message. Went back to Blinko. Was very polite and wanted an address to send a letter to Blinko.

After several calls (when doing the third call start keying in any number because the system will route you to a different automated system and will hang up on you. Finally, I spoke to a supervisor by the name of Itwala. She gave me an address of 1521 Alton Road, Miami Beach, Fl 323139-3301. But, she could not provide a phone number. I keyed in the address and came up with many, many different names. I called a few and was told this was a UPS Store. Went to that site and found the number 1-305-538-5076 was advised I could not get a letter to this business with out the box number. I advised could not get it from customer care, he said he could not give it to me because of privacy issues. I told him the story so he would be aware of the situation. He thought I should call the police.

I called Miami Beach BBB. They do not handle, this is federal. I got a number that did not work. Found FCC at 888-225-5322. The FCC has gotten some complaints but not enough to investigate. They gave me the Florida's Attorney Generals number 1-954-712-4600 and were told to go to RipoffReport.com for more information. Called FL Att Generals number left a message and they called back within minutes. I filed a complaint against Blinko. The following is the info you will need to stop this billing and to put an end to this fraud:

Blinko is called Buongiorno and the phone number is 305-777-2209 but it is a fax number. Their address is 235 Lincoln Rd Ste # 400, Miami Beach, Fl 33139 and a third address: 1680 Michigan Ave Ste 700, Miami, Fl 33139. Blinko/Buongiorno is known as Buongiorno USA, Inc., d/b/a Dirty Hippo. Case # L05-3-1140 with Florida's Attorney Generals office. This office is being investigated for: Negative option subscriptions for cell phone ring tones and similar services. The case is being handled by the Economic Crimes Division in Tallahassee, Florida.

A little bit of FYI: the company handling Blink's customer care is Answernet based in Birmingham, Alabama. The number on the internet site is 1-800-4115777. They handle a lot of high end companies. Make sure you call this number to let them know you are an unhappy consumer and you can spread the word of their compliance with this Blinko fraud. They will not do anything but just let them know that their company should know more about their clients. How can they contact Blinko if they do not have an address or a phone number for the client? How much money are they making to turn a blind eye to this disgrace? Do not let this go. The money you are paying is not much for many people but could this company be a front for a terrorist organization. I would not want $1.00 of my money going to a terrorist organization. If you cannot follow the paper or money trail, you need to start pushing the above numbers into your phone. The 800 numbers will cost these companies money not you. File charges with FCC and Florida Attorney General's office. File charges with the FCC and with your states Attorney General against your cell phone carrier. Stand up and be heard!

Cheryl Hardin
[ August 24, 2006 ]

Scam

Why should we give in to these scam artists and change our phone numbers. Its not that easy especially if you use the phone for business, notifying everyone with the number change is no small task. Besides that haven't you ever heard the old battle cry, "Don't go down without a fight"? No way do I give in that easy, screw them!

Annoyed
[ August 22, 2006 ]

Stopping 3rd Party Mobile Content Scams for Good...

If you do NOT want to continue to recieve these charges then please do the following: CHANGE YOUR PHONE NUMBER.

Deep Throat
[ August 20, 2006 ]

Direct Bill Download Scam

I work for Cingular in Customer Service and I am sick of these goddamn calls from customers about charges for these goddamn direct bill charges from 3rd party content providers. Cingular (and the other carriers) are making a KILLING thru their partnership with these Scamsters. Cingular gets 35% of proceeds from any 3rd party charges that show up on your bill so that is why they have not banned it altogether. Most people don't even notice them on their bill and just pay them, that's really their fault though, they should read their bill every month to better manage their wireless bill. I want to tell customers what's really on my mind about these scam artists but since we partner with these a&*holes I can't say anything negative. I guess in the meantime, report Cingular and the content providers to the Better Business Bureau in your area. If enough people report them, they have to do something about it. Cingular is trying to gain a rep as a dependable wireless company, the last thing they need is their name being besmirched because of some nickel and diming scammers.

John Spain
[ August 17, 2006 ]

Stupid m_Qube Inc.

These scammers have hit myspace with their phony free ring tone ads. I was a little buzzed one night and entered my cell phone number onto the website. Although I didn't want their subscription my cell service got hit with charges anyhow. 3 messages billed at $.10 each and $9.99 under m_Qube Inc. I called Cingular tonight. I spoke to the nice rep who refunded my charges and said to call back if it happens again. I had him block websites from texting my phone. I asked him point blank if he had been getting these calls—he said yes with a hesitation. Cingular is aware of the scam. So BLOCK those 3rd parties.

Cingular Customer
[ August 15, 2006 ]

Cingular M-Qube Thievery

I received my wireless bill this month and almost blew a gasket. There was an additional $33.56 in charges from M-Qube downloads. Not just one but two subscription charges and 2.99 per day for a joke they send without consent, or they get the consent in a sneaky, covert way. My son said he got a text message that he didn't recognize and accepted it anyway which triggers the joke a day message which he has been receiving for a month now and just deleting them. I had no idea he was getting this text message on a daily basis or I would have called Cingular earlier, who knows I could have paid a few months into this scam, now that I think back.

I called Cingular and they were very co-operative and dropped the extra charges and said that it would not happen again. That remains to be seen when I get my bill next month. I have told my son if he downloads one more ringtone or wallpaper the phone will be a pile of crushed plastic. Apparently that's how they get your phone number. Does it really make a difference what the phone sounds like anyway when you get a call? Maybe to a teenager but they need to be educated about this scam. He seemed to understand and said he is done with downloads. I can only hope, so I don't have to go through this again. This needs to be stopped, it's time for help from the powers that be!

Annoyed
[ August 15, 2006 ]

Blinko Class-Action Lawsuit (Yay!)

Contact Myles McGuire at Blim & Edelson They're putting together a class-action lawsuit vs Buongiorno USA/Blinko/DirtyHippo:
Myles@blimlaw.com
Phone: (312) 913-9400
Toll Free (888) 325-4652

Brian D
[ August 15, 2006 ]

The Scam of Sprint /Jamster

I never ordererd any ringtones on my phone, but keep getting charged with this bullcrap. I called the Sprint reps. and to no avail they have tried to help me out. They gave me some bs to call 1-866-626-2823. But no one is there to help you. They give you a bogus website to cancel something that you never ordered.

naeem
[ August 13, 2006 ]

Blinko Scam - T-Mobile

I was looking for a ring-tone and I saw that Blinko was advertising ring-tones for free. I gave them my phone number but I did not download any ring-tones. I got a charge of $9.99 this month on my phone bill. I called my phone company - T-Mobile - and they were very helful. They gave instruction to stop the txt messages and also they are refunding my money. In addition thay said that if it keeps happening they will be the ones to stop the txt messages. Hopefully, everything is how they say it will be. Nothing is free on the internet!!!!!!! No one is that nice!!!!!!!! Look out.

Millie
[ August 11, 2006 ]

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