t_will kieronoddie harrrrrry dtuxcomp mandy296
Very poor performance from giffgaff, After two weeks, you would have hoped for better.
Other networks sent texts to affected customers within 48 hours reassuring them that they would be refunded, without them needing to take further action.
Nearly two weeks after the fraudulent charges were taken, giffgaff were still telling members that they would have to fight for a refund themselves. We now know that giffgaff never paid members funds out to the fraudsters and so could have swiftly refunded them.
Members affected by this security breach deserve not just a proper apology, but compensation for hassle and worry caused by giffgaff failing to take responsibility.
giffgaff need to look at their security procedures, and at the way they risk assess their potential business partners. Moblix Media were fined £100,000 in 2014 for sending similar unsolicited premium texts. Why on earth did giffgaff give them unfettered access to members funds?
If giffgaff insist on allowing dubious companies to help themselves to their customers’ money, members should at least be allowed to opt out of having third party payments applied to their accounts.
This fiasco has also highlighted the dismal and robotic responses of poorly trained agents. giffgaff need to encourage agents show some initiative and to escalate cases when it is obvious that the “script” from which they are working is inappropriate.
If giffgaff wish to continue acting as a payment processor without accepting FCA regulation, they urgently need to implement a “third party charge bar” similar to those offered by O2, Vodafone and EE. The provision of such a bar is a legal requirement for Irish networks, and in many other parts of Europe. We will be pressing the regulator to implement similar regulations in the UK.
In this day and age there really is no excuse for forcing consumers to expose themselves to a highly vulnerable payment mechanism, when all they want is telephony and data services supplied directly by their network.
This debacle has exposed the fact that members funds are highly vulnerable to fraudulent charges. It is a disgrace that giffgaff accused members of initiating these fraudulent charges when, in fact, they had no evidence to support this view. Why were they happier to believe Moblix Media (a company with a history of making unlawful charges) rather than their own members?
