Now I don’t know how many others out there received them, but I’m guessing there are quite a lot of you, but recently I’ve been getting SMS Messages by the bucket load sent to my mobile from I’m guessing SIM Only deals offered by the various Mobile carriers, in particularly Tesco Mobile, who are presently offering a “5000 txts for £5” SIM deal.
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What annoys me is that my mobile number is not readily available and I’ve never given it out to anything that might put it in the hands of marketing companies, especially the sort that might want me to take out Payday Loans, reclaim PPI or put in an insurance claim for an accident, but still I receive these SMS messages, this is most likely down to Random Number generators being used with Pay as you Go or SIM Deals to send SMS messages.
I’ve made numerous calls to Tesco Mobiles Customer services complaining about this with no effect, just the same routine answer, inform your Mobile carrier and request your number is changed . . . and that’s it, they apparently cannot do anything else about it, well I’m not happy about that, because why should I change my number through no fault of my own, when Tesco continue to allow their SIM Deals to make them money, while we the innocent mobile user suffers because they can’t monitor/police the abuse of their SIM Deals.
Anyway after much digging I’ve now got the contact emails (correct I hope) of Tesco’s Chairman, various Directors and Managing Directors: Ian Maclaurin; David malpas; David Reid; Michael Wemms; John Gildersleeve; Philip Clarke
I’ve sent all of them the following letter hoping to receive a response
Dear Sir,
First allow me to apologise if you are the incorrect person to contact regarding the following matter;
I would like to discuss with you the blight of Unsolicited SMS Text Messages from Tesco Mobile Numbers.
I have for the past number of weeks received numerous text messages relating to PPI Payments, PayDay Loans, Insurance Claims all asking me to visit websites or send a reply.
All of these text messages have originated from Tesco Mobile telephone numbers, examples of sms received and the numbers received from are shown below:
“Hi, if you receive this SMS a loan of up to £1000 is approved for you. 1min verification, no fees, cash NOW at www.quidstoday.co.uk” (Tesco Mobile Number 07729 316008)
“URGENT: Records show you are entitled to £2470 in compensation for the mis-selling of PPI on your loans and credit cards. For details reply PPI” (Tesco Mobile Number 07546 976834)
“”Hi, if you receive this SMS a loan of up to £1000 is approved for you. 1min verification, no fees, cash NOW at www.easilyverify.co.uk reply stop offer to stop” (Tesco Mobile Number 07742 907832)
I have never provided my number to anyone except my close family, as the mobile number receiving these texts is predominantly for emergency contact in the event anything happens to my mother”
I have contacted Tesco Mobile phone support on numerous occasions to complain about this and am continually told there is nothing they can do about it as they cannot view an accounts details to view the usage unless it is the account holder on the phone, I fully understand this and accept it, however this is now getting beyond a joke and I would like to know what Tesco as a responsible company is doing to monitor its pay as you go Mobile Sim packages specifically one’s such as “5000 texts for £5” as these are the sort of SIM deals that I presume are being used by marketing companies to send their Marketing Text Messages to Randomly Generated Mobile telephone numbers.
I cannot believe I am alone when it comes to complaining to Tesco about this and believe that Tesco should be implementing some sort of Usage Pattern Analysis on such SIM Deals once activated, which would no doubt show details such as the amount of Random Numbers being texted from the SIM and when this occurs have the SIM Disabled.
At present all Tesco seem to be doing about it is making money off other peoples misery and your only response to complaints to your Tesco Mobile support telephone numbers, is to inform the unfortunate people who are receiving these constant SMS messages is to complain to their own Mobile carrier and suggest they request a new mobile number.
As a responsible company, do you yourself not believe that Tesco should be doing more to combat this blight that is affecting/interrupting numerous individuals.
Should you wish to contact me further to discuss this matter please either contact me via :
Hopefully they will respond with a solution to this very annoying issue and if they do I’ll post it here.
Yet more ppi sms messages from UK Scum Spammers offering £2350 in commpensation for mis sold ppi, well a few key points here to think on before using the services of a low life scum bag like this.
1: they do not have your permission to send you an sms message as per UK legislation they must have an opt in statement and most will tell you that you filled in an online survey this is rubbish they are attempting to avoid detection.
2: The sms message breaches a whole lot of other rules as they can not list records indicate this is misleading to an individual whom may receive said message.
3: Anyone needing to seek a ppi refund from credit cards or banks Do Not Under Any Circumstances Use a Company to do this as they will in all cases charge you a large fee for doing so and in some cases this is as high as 40%, look on http://www.moneysavingexpert.co.uk and use the free letter templates to reclaim this yourself.
4: If you only ever receive the odd few of these sms messages then just delete them, ignore other peoples advice that say replying makes the scum bag scammer aware of your number as they already know this from the delivery report of the sms message to your mobile.
5: People say report them to the ICO, I advise to use the MOJ as they take these cases more serious and will endevour to punish the scum that send these out.
6: If like me you get sent lots of the sms messages then please use this site to list the number and details to make others aware of these nasty low life individuals that hound us with unwanted rubbish each and every day, you can always use the keyword in the reply ie: claim, yes or ppi and await a phone call to source the original sender as the Company that rings you must supply you with the full details of the sender and then advise the scum not to harrass you ever again.
I get the same numerous texts too, when I call the number back it goes to answerphone so I leave a message saying I will be reporting the number to the relevant authorities to have it barred but I don’t leave my number so they can’t forward it to any other companies to perpetuate the text sending. Whatever you do, don’t text back as they then know your number is live and can sell it on to other similar companies who will start the cycle over again!!
Try contacting the CEO for tesco mobile: graham.harris@uk.tesco.com
I’ve just read that someone sent a complaint to him and got a response!!
As Tesco Mobile use O2 as their service provider by contract – i.e. we are actually using the 02 system re-branded as Tesco Mobile – would it not be worth complaining to O2?
I’ve spent many hours on the phone to both Tesco and O2 and all they ever do is offer to change my number for me, which they’ve done twice so far, but if I have to do it a 3rd time, I’m not giving in until I get them to ban these sim cards totally from being sold to unscrupolous call centres.
Hi Henry,
apolgoies for delayed response . . I’ve been in contact with both 02 and Tesco about the matter, but with very little positive action on their side, they responded with the usual speel about how they are trying to stop this spam occuring and that I should forward the message to the relevant Networks Spam Prevention team, but as we all know, by the time they have received it, the particular number in question is already dead/used up its quota of free text messages and they culprits have just moved onto another free sim.
Only was I see of stopping this is either companies like Tesco/o2 start to collect data on the people who purchase these burners/throw away numbers and insist that identification be used when purchasing, so they at least can hopefully spot re-offenders and prevent them buying these sims.
Tesco themselves send out unsolicited, unwanted nuisance text messages telling us about their latest prices and deals. I have complained in writing, by email and by telephone and essentially received the reply “Tough – we’re not going to stop sending them to you”, which I find incredible. Anyway, I will be suing them in the Milton Keynes County court and fully publicising the matter in due course.
Morning Tim, let me know how you get on, in the meantime, do you want contact details for the upper management CEO etc
Tim a good place to start for getting the CEO’s number is via this website http://www.ceoemail.com/ also I’d suggest contacting them via Twitter, as Tesco’s don’t like their dirty laundry being displayed in public so to speak and their twitter feed is very public, I had issues earlier this year with another Tesco product i.e. Pet Insurance and they were not willing to pay out, but once I started raising the issue with them on Twitter I immediately got a response and they re-opened my claim and after a few days of conversation they coughed up on the claim.
Anyway good luck . .
How’s going with Tesco’s Tim ?
Sad dog says it all, unsolicited texts suck!