The crazy frog scam........

I found this interesting especially as I am thinking of getting my son a mobile for christmas. I havent noticed any real problems here in france with this but I am really going to check it out to make sure. Anyone have anymore information on this?

Quote:

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'Crazy Frog doubled my phone bill'
By Hannah Bayman
BBC News
Crazy Frog's Axel F became the first ringtone to reach number one
When I ordered the Crazy Frog Axel F ringtone, in an ironic mood, I expected a bit of derision from friends.
What I did not expect was to be hit with a hugely-inflated mobile bill after being sent a slew of junk texts.
After texting a number on a television advert to get the tone, I was bombarded with messages from Jamster inviting me to download more tones.
It wasn't until my next bill arrived from Orange that I discovered each junk text from Jamster had cost me £3.
When I called Orange, the call centre operator told me I was one of hundreds of people he had spoken to with the same complaint.

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Full story.

The follow up.

Quote:

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Refunds ordered over Crazy Frog
Over 300 people complained about the service
Hundreds who complained about been ripped off by the Crazy Frog ringtone are entitled to a refund, an official watchdog has ruled.
The premium rate services regulator, Icstis, said the Crazy Frog ads did not clearly explain the costs involved.
It fined service provider Mblox £40,000 and ordered it to refund the 338 people who complained to the watchdog.
Others who ran up huge bills by signing up to the subscription service but did not make a complaint are not eligible.
More soon.

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I know of someone that this happened to also..

But people forget that you just go and by a data cable for your mobile, and you can download that ringtone from any website that let's you send free TxT messages.
They usually give you a free ringtone or wallpaper just for signing up or for referring a friend to the site and if they sign up for free then you get free stuff for your mobile phone. ;)

interesting article i wonder if more complaints are suddenly going to appear from the wood work once more people find out about this refund..

cheers
front2back

They got pulled up for not advertising clearly enough that what was being bought was not the feckin' Frog ringtone but a membership to a ringtone subscription service which would send new ringtones 2-3 (or a lot more for some) times a week for £3 a pop. It was all in small print at the bottom of the advert, too small to read unless you had a monster TV. The company was also very poor in letting people stop the texts with the instructions on how to do it being hard to find and the STOP message not working in many cases.

Lots of people complained to the regulator and the result was the story you mention. Very few company seem to sell ringtones, it's all subscriptions which need to be stopped.

I think over here you cann have your kids phone barred from the premium numbers to get the stuff but I've no idea if it's the same ion France.