Fraudulent Google Play Transactions

[literallyJoel]

My phone was stolen on Saturday March 5th, and over the next 10 minutes or so they racked up £239.51 of charges over 19 Google Play transactions. They were not made on my own Google account. I went into an EE store to get a replacement SIM on the Monday and told them that my phone had been stolen. I did not discover the charges until today when my bank notified me of the upcoming direct debit. 

I have tried contacting Google Support and they directed me to a form to report these transactions, but they require a Correlation ID. I cannot find any information on this and all the support agent would tell me is "Your carrier will provide this". Any help either getting the Correlation ID or disputing these charges with EE would be much appreciated. 

[Pinky2802]

Hi Joel,

I just had this happen to me after phone was stolen at a festival and this solution has been a major help. What happened with this in the end? I have just submitted my claim to google with the transaction IDs, what were the next steps? Did they require any proofs?

Many thanks

[a_vasudeva]

Exactly the same thing has happened to my son. iPhone stolen at festival and by the next morning over £200 of Google play transactions. Impossible to call EE to report so I went to a store to report and get replacement sim.

However even though we now have a functioning new sim in a new handset the transactions continue to appear. A search on boku shows numerous failed and successful transactions all for tiktok tokens.A total of 26 successful transactions.

Unfortuntely despite a lenghty online chat ths evening EE CS refuse to believe that these current transactions could be fraudulent and accused us of making them. great service!!

I have submitted a few to Google in the hope that they will see the pattern but EE..OMG what clowns!

[Christopher_G]

I'm so sorry to hear that you're having this problem, @a_vasudeva.

I've sent you a private message to get some information from you. Could you have a look and get back to me please?

Thanks

Chris

[dmorgan77]

Hello - this exact same thing has happened to me. I had my phone stolen and £239.19 worth of charges were racked up on google play before I could cancel my phone number. 

I keep being told to contact google but google have responded to say 

"Unfortunately, we cannot help resolve your issue because it appears to be specific to your mobile phone account, which we do not have access to. We suggest you reach out to them for a possible resolution."

EE keep telling me that they do not deal with third parties. How do I escalate this because google have closed my claim. These were fraudulent charges made once my phone was stolen. EE refuse to help and tell me to speak to google. Google tell me to speak to EE. 

Please can you assist.

Thanks,
Dan

[Leanne_T]

Hi @dmorgan77

I'm sorry to hear this has happened. 

I've sent you a private message to get some information from you. Could you have a look and get back to me please?

Leanne.

[a_vasudeva]

Even though we were given a new sim and bought a new handset we had another set of charges on the bill a month later. Again EE claim that this is not possible (argued that my son must be using it, but he has no google account) and google never replied to the claim form. It is clearly a major gap in security.

I have even reported to the police but they were not interested. 

[a_vasudeva]

The point about these transactions is that they are not on 'your' google account. Your sim is put in another device and used to make charges against your sim account that provides benefits (tokens etc) to the third party google account. This continued even after getting a replacement sim. There is a loophole in the EE/google interface. 

[Leanne_T]

Hi @a_vasudeva

I have sent you a private message for some extra details. 

Leanne.

[SteffIsla]

I recently submitted a claim for fraud which was denied through google. My phone was stolen on the evening of the 10th December 2022 around 23.50pm.

The police was called as it was in a bar and two other women had their phones stolen at a similar time. The incident was reported by myself and my crime reference number is xxxxxxx/xx. My mobile SIM card was used to purchase x12 transactions on google play store total £238.91 which was all purchased within minutes from 01.31am 11th December 2022 using my mobile number xxxxxxxxxxx through my sim

Card. I rang my mobile network provider EE on the 11th December in the morning and they blocked the phone and the SIM card. My mobile network EE told me to contact yourselves and you will refund me as it is fraud. I used your company which was instructed BOKU used by google and they issues myself correlation ID’s. I sent all this to google and they are refusing to refund me even though I do not even have a google play account never even used it before. Can anyone suggest anything else I can do? 

Thanks Steff

[Mod edit: Please do not post personal information on the public board. Thanks!]

[Leanne_T]

Hi @SteffIsla 

I'm very sorry to hear this has happened. 

Have Google advised why this was denied? 

Do they need any extra information? 

Leanne.