EE Fraud / Sony PlayStation Unauthorised payment

[RMG_7]

Hi

Please can you help me.

My daughter is an EE customer and on the 17th October when she was in bed and her phone was in another room, Sony charged to her phone 6 x charges, see below totalling £223.94. This a noticed when my recent bill was paid.

We have no contact texts from either EE nor Sony NOR DO WE EVEN OWN A SONY PLAYSTATION!!!  This was a fraudulent, illegal and was authorised by EE as far as I am concerned and in this instance an innocent child is the victim which is not good and EE NEED TO PAY ATTENTION as it is Sony this time, who / what next..?  

Please can you reimburse these unauthorised charges immediately as I want to avoid going down the legal route (but have spoken to local police re this fraud) which will incur more cost and will take time but I am prepared to do this as these costs I cannot afford to pay and it causes financial 
Stress. My trust in EE as a service provider for my children is now in question. I have tried to call the Sony customer service number on my bill but is constantly closed. 
Future more, this needs to be urgently addressed by EE to safeguard other vulnerable children (and adults) All 3rd party charges should be automatically checked for verification by EE before payment is made, either by text or via the EE App. 

[Liz2345]

It’s ridiculous and I’m so glad I googled and found that others have experienced this because I nearly went mad at both my kids thinking  they had been buying stuff on apps etc!!

The fact that my kids have spending cap on should have prevented any other payments going out, hopefully I will get the refund but it’s also annoying that it will be credited to my phone bill rather than bank account.

[Christopher_G]

Hi @Jennyhope12 

Welcome to the community.

I'm sorry to hear that you had some unexpected charges on your bill. 

We have a Charge to bill help page that explains how it works, including a code of practice, which explains it in more detail.

In that information, it explains how you can add bars to specific numbers on your account. I recommend doing that through our Customer Support team, if you haven't already.

You've done the right thing in contacting the provider of the service that you were charged for. It's good that they've agreed a refund. Hopefully, you'll see that on your EE account soon. 

Chris

[Jennyhope12]

Hi Chris,

What exactly is EE doing about this and their relationship with Sony/Playstation, as it seems to be escalating with more and more customers being illegally charged through your (EE's) partnership with them and allowing them to use your platform to automatically bill? 

I am aware that there is a whole "NOTES" section that is started on the EE side, so that when customers call in with this complaint there is something on your system that says "NOTES" when the customer mentions Sony/Playstation fraud. I had two different employees tell me this. The first employee had no idea and it was only after my 3rd call and I randomly kept getting the same guy, he said "oh, let me click on this- it says Notes re: Sony/playstation fraud... and he read outloud to me what has been documented in the EE system. Short version is that EE is aware of multiple calls from customers saying they are getting charges from Sony/Playstation on their EE account and to tell customers that they must have been given a four digit code to authorise the purchase of 39.99, and to tell them it is most likely from using a social media website like tictok and that their child may not have even known they did but they did. Refer them to Sony, and if they can't get ahold of Sony (many customers have come back saying its not possible to contact Sony/playstation unless you have an active account which no customers seem to have, then refer them to Boca fraud."

My point is, that if its happening so much that notes on top of notes need to be put into your system (which 1/2 your employees don't seem to know how to access) then this is a much bigger issue that needs to be addressed by EE. 

Sony/Playstation have found a loophole and exploiting EE by using EE as a third party billing for illegal charges and making it impossible/no avenue to dispute the charges. EE is responsible for protecting their customers from fraud. 

This is not just a one off, as you can see by this thread, but is a very serious and significant amount of money being scammed through EE's billing platform. 

Can you also tell me what information EE shares with Sony/Playstation, as it seems to me that EE has shared only "additional add on phone numbers (which are usually kids), or shared the phone numbers that are designated as "child lines" when the parent uses the EE platform as a parent to activate the child "block" feature. It just seems impossible that almost all complaints on here, and on the EE notes written by EE staff as directions to customers to tell them their child did this on social media- can NOT be a coincidence. Why is Sony/Playstation only fraudulently charging child lines? Is it because they knew it would be a very difficult task for a parent to prove their child didn't click at some point at some time in the last 6 months on a hidden add? It's very easy to blame a kid, and would be additional lines a great target for this type of scam.

Also, EE sent out messages to update the number about the amount of data used the exact second that EE reports the charges of Sony/Playstation went through. This can't also be a coincidence. Is it possible that Sony/Playstation has hacked in to EE and found a way to quickly do these rapid progressive charges (most everyone reports 3-6 charges within seconds to under a minute). 

Can IT please look into this and draw some connections to how this is possible? It is very concerning if EE customer information is being shared and or sold to Sony/Playstation and other companies that are using that information to build easy ways to commit fraud against EE's customers. 

I will put these concerns forward via Email as well, but I wanted others to read this and for EE to see that it's customers expect more from them to not give easy access to fraudulent companies to harm us. You will loose customers based on turning a blind eye to this, or even worse end up with serious fines once this is investigated. 

Thanks, 

Jenny

[Peter_W]

Good afternoon @Jennyhope12.

Welcome back to the Community!

I totally appreciate your concerns around numbers that are being used by young people, and all EE customers, regardless of age, are able to opt out of charge to mobile services should they wish. 

You can activate this immediately by sending us a text from the affected phone with BAR to 150, or also by speaking with our team. 

Charge to mobile is a genuine billing platform used by thousands of customers every day, and is offered by a wide range of online retailers, including Sony's PlayStation store.

There's nothing clandestine about this, I've used it myself for purchases on my own PlayStation, and when you make a transaction a one time PIN is sent from 78660 to the number being billed for verification. 

The transaction can not proceed without this PIN, so the only way that it would be possible for this transaction to go through on another account is if a bad actor were to obtain this code via some form of social engineering, such as TikTok like you mentioned, or any other online messaging platform.

If you fear that you or a family member may have fallen victim to such a scam, we would recommend contacting the Police via Action Fraud.

Boku is also a genuine platform, and they are the intermediary between online marketplaces such as the PlayStation Store, and mobile carriers like us. 

If you log into their customer care portal with the affected number, it will list all your transactions, along with the transaction IDs for them and the merchant should you wish to dispute these. They have special guidance around social engineering scams, too.

I suspect the additional notes you're referring to here refer to internal guidance we have around these sort of scams; we take all these reports seriously, and it is possible for our team to escalate to Boku on your behalf, too. 

You're more than welcome to give us another call where we can help get this sorted out, or alternatively you can find details on how to raise this directly to our complaints team here:

Make a Complaint | Contact Us | EE

Peter