Tuesday 19 August 2014

Ever heard of Cellfish, or Blinkogold?

We certainly haven't, yet we have abbonnements with them and BlueBayMedia as well. It seems that certain "apps" on mobile phones and tablets, or SMS messages received pretty well make it impossible not to sign up to these mobile phone or game sites, especially if the reader is a child or someone who doesn't understand French (here in France - in the UK the same things happen in English). So our internet bill, normally 39.40 euros for box, line and telephone from SFR, was 109 euros for June and 89 euros for July.
The fault almost certainly lies with renters and their children who have access to our wifi when they stay here. With their smartphones and tablets in seemingly constant use it is no surprise that these "purchases" as SFR class them have started to appear. Apparently Internet+ is a newish way of paying for downloads of games, music etc in which the suppliers of the content bill SFR (and Orange, Free etc) for the downloads and abbonnements, and they in turn charge you.
It looks as if SFR are well aware that services of this type, though legal, are often scams as you need to tell them not to bill you a standing charge, rather than paying for downloads as you use them. It is easy to resile via your SFR site and you can set your preferences to refuse purchases or require a password. But they say that as such purchases require "deliberate choices" they are not liable for any losses. I have suggested that as their default settings are lax and they did not inform me about Internet+ they are negligent and should take the blame.
No doubt this will get nowhere, and so I will try to follow up Cellfish (via Mydoo.fr) and Blinkogold and see what happens there.
Val says   Malc has written the above and I am glad he has now blocked all downloads.
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