Bango.com/Google charges on my Rogers Bill

[Xdj]

Greetings All,
I have been billed close to $100 for movie purchases and rentals that I never made from a tablet number that the SIM card has been removed from.
Rogers tells me they can't do anything as I have to contact Bango since they are the provider and Google because it was their movies.
I never heard of Bango until today and there are no confirmation emails on my google email address connected to my tablet.
How do I get a refund and how do I stop this from happening again.
And no, my email address has not been compromised!

Thanks,
C

***Edited Labels***

[DP14]

Xdj, I cannot believe I am reading almost exactly what has just happened to me minus the resolution near the end. I have the emails into google & bango, spoke with 2 rogers employees, went to a rogers location to speak in person and spoke online chat - rogers will not acknowledge these charges are fraud and just direct me to bango who then directs me to google and around I go. No history in google account of any of the false movie charges, plus my tablet sim card is in a dead cell phone sitting in a closet not being used.

I am shocked rogers has no protection in these now seemly common cases. And now even more shocked they wont do anything for me!!

Possible updates to come........

[RogersRob]

Good evening @DP14, 

Congratulations on your first post and welcome to the Community Forums! 

We are saddened to hear about your experience trying to get these third-party charges reversed  on your account.
We'd really like the chance to take a closer look at the situation with you and see what can be done to get the charges refunded. 
We will need to check the notes on your file to determine what the next steps are. If you can share emails from Bango and Google they can be helpful. Please send a private message to @CommunityHelps so we can get started. You can send us screenshots via private message.

Not familiar with our private messaging system? No worries, Click here. 

Awaiting your reply.

RogersRob

[Bob8888]

Saw a surprising charge of $60 on my last Rogers bill and yes it was for 3rd party services for Bango.  Never heard of it and never did business with them.  Service rep from Rogers said that the  amount is something purchased through Google Play.  I purchased nothing through Google Play and I know it because I checked my account and there is not a purchase from Bango for the 60 bucks.

Rogers needs to answer to us and change their policy about 3rd party companies that use Rogers to pull off scams and frauds.  I've opened a complaint case with CCTS.  

[Bob8888]

I'll wait for CCTS to contact me before  I get back to Rogers.  You definitely well know that what is going on with Bango is a scam.  I'm not the only one who has reported this.

[Datalink]

You might want to consider reporting this to your local police or RCMP as an ongoing case of theft or fraud, take your pick, and to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada as a potential loss of private information by Google and/or Rogers Communications. 

https://www.priv.gc.ca/en/

[Bob8888]

Thanks.  Fired off something to the privacy commissioner.  Will check with the police/RCMP later on today.

Update - filed a report through  The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre Fraud Reporting System.  Contacted Bango, who is looking at the incident also.  Just need Rogers to become more involved because they are involved in allowing this 3rd party mystery billing.

[Xdj]

Please keep us updated!

I'm still waiting to hear back from Bango, they are not replying to my emails about a refund!

Plus, Rogers isn't doing much to prevent this from happening. 

X

[-G-]

@Xdj  FYI, Fido customers are complaining about the same thing:

• BANGO THE CHRONIC THIRD PARTY CHARGE FRAUDSTER
• my fido credit has been scammed. And fido will not do anything..
• 3rd party charges
• Third Party Charges

I'm curious... Did you happen to take Rogers up on a promotion for a "free" tablet?  (I think the Rogers/Fido offer was for something like, get a $600 tablet and X GB data/month FREE for 6 months, $10/month thereafter if you do not cancel.)

I couldn't see how such a giveaway could make any business sense, and the support agent couldn't explain it either.  I didn't go for the "free" offer because the price seemed to be too high.

[Bob8888]

Got a response from Bango.  They issued a refund and are investigating some more.  I have a sense that Rogers is ignoring this issue of 3rd party payees that financially impacts its customers.

Still waiting for responses from CCTS and CAFC.  Will post updates.

[Bob8888]

Received a VM  from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada requesting that I call back to discuss the case.  Will do on Monday and post the outcome. 

[DP14]

Looking forward to Bob8888's update!

Update on my situation with un-authorized third party charges against my tablet phone #;

-Bango stopped communicating with me August 13/2020 after I asked for supporting reference numbers for the fraudulent "google pay" charges, 3 un-answered emails in a row.  In my opinion, this company seems like they are the crooks in all of our situations.

-Google was very easy to deal with and were willing to credit me, they just need reference numbers and correlation ID's. But like everyone else here, my google account has no history of any purchases so there is nothing to ask for a credit for. But Google still wanted to help me even though they had nothing to do with this all.....I find that strange.

-My last conversation with Rogers on Aug 13/2020 was successful resulting in an agreement to credit my account all the unauthorized third party charges over the two bills I received. Today I received my next bill from Roger's with the last two unauthorized charges that squeaked through before I block all third parties, I called them again this morning  and everything went smooth, my situation should be settled by next bill or latest the bill after that. 

I believe the turning point in my case was stating to Rogers " You are the company asking me to pay you this money for movies charged to my tablet data plan's phone # therefore, Rogers has to provide me the supporting receipt/reference #s/correlation ids/any sort of reference # for these charges" But Rogers cannot support these charges. 

I wish everyone the best of luck in the resolution of your cases. I hope people can find this forum to help them with their potential cases in the future. 

[SweetPotatoe]

So I googled "Bango Charges" and this is the first result.

For anyone who's on this thread, I can tell you 100% that this had *NOTHING* to do with my Google Pay / App account, because:

1) I do not have one

2) the number / SIM in question was used in a wireless terminal for *VOICE ONLY*, there is no smart capabilities in the device.  The account was strictly a cellular voice call account.  The device doesn't even have texting capabilities.

So all that said, these charges stems from fraudulent activities, you will NOT find these charges tied to your Google account.

[RogersYasmine]

Hello @SweetPotatoe!

Thank you for your post and for sharing your recent findings with the rest of the community. Receiving unexpected third party charges on your invoice can be disheartening for anyone. 😕

Can you please verify if you have been in contact with Bango and has this matter since been resolved? If so, what was the outcome?

We look forward to your reply! 

RogersLaura

[Frankchen]

I have the same issue as you. someone use my account purchases book rent  movie. I didn't notice until receive the bill, I checked my Google play account no record in there. I called Rogers, they ask me to contact Bango, Bango replied my first email and ask me to provide some information like phone no, after that they didn't reply any of my Email, I called Rogers again they said this kind of issue only Bango can help, they can not do anything. I'm so disappointed with Rogers, I'm Rogers's customer but they said can not help, the bad thing is this issue happen in every month, I can not do anything to stop. 

I hope Rogers do something and care about customer, otherwise no one will use Rogers.

[Xdj]

Greetings All,

I can’t believe these fraudulent charges are still happening at Rogers.

I think Rogers needs to step up and figure this out before they start losing customers.

For one thing, I think they need to disable Direct Carrier Billing by default. Also, make sure there is a paper trail for the transactions. I know Bango and Google need transaction #’s and correlation ID’s to process refunds but when those id’s and #’s don't exist, it's very hard to get your money back!

I spent a couple of months chasing Bango, Google, and Rogers for my refund and it was very frustrating. For one, Rogers made me feel like I was trying to scam them with the charges. Half of the charges were for movies that were already on Crave or onDemand service. Why would I spend money on renting when I could watch them for free?

The questions they ask you, ie “Are you sure no family members or friends used your phone without your knowledge and rented/purchased the movies”. Ah, no…. Remember, there are no Google play transactions, so if it was possible, why not any charges?

“Are you sure you didn’t accidentally purchase/rent the movies”. Oh sure, like 10 times!

My favorite,” Are you sure no one removed your sim card from your device, installed it in theirs,  downloaded/watched the movies, and then replaced it back into your device.” Yeah, I think not. I think I would have noticed that! Yes, I’m serious... This was asked by a Rogers agent.

Google was a little better, they offered to call Rogers on my behalf but that failed due to Rogers cutting off Google and I could get them back together.

Bango simply stopped responding to my emails after a couple of months even after they were going to refund me but needed some more information. Emailing is the only way to communicate with them.

So, after 5 agents, Rogers finally refunded me for January’s bill. Then came February’s bill and there was another $50 in fraudulent charges on it. I never did get that $50 back!

The only way I know stopped the fraudulent charges was to change my number for my device.

Now, if someone gets my old number, will they get charged by Bango?

Ok, that's my rant. It’s very frustrating…

@Frankchen, keep calling Rogers about the charges and take @DP14  suggestion.

Good luck,

X

[Xdj]

G,

Yes, I did, 2.5 years ago.
It was cheaper for me to do it (a total of $240) this way than upgrading my plan.
Due to the occasional overage and adding data before the end of the month, it was cheaper this way.

The odd thing is that the cell # attached to the tablet was the # that had the fraudulent charges attached to it.
Sorry to hear you were scammed as well!

Regards,

X

[Teesh83]

Hello, I've gotten myself in the same situation and was billed $199. Call rogers just to find out they can't help. I didn't even know that things like this can happen. First they started with my credit card, the company cancelled the card , refund my money and send me a new card. Now they going after my child's phone which is just not fair. Rogers should block all third party upon getting there services. I want to change my wireless company.

[RogersZia]

Hi @Teesh83,

Welcome to the Rogers Community Forums!

I can imagine how upsetting unexpected charges can be. Have you had a chance to speak to bango about these charges? For any questions about the billing or support with the third party charges, you can refer to the provider’s contact information in the “Details of third party charges” section of your bill.

Did you know that you can require a password or authentication for purchases? You can find the steps on how to add password protection against unwanted in-app purchases here. 

Please keep us posted!

RogersZia

[justinpvandamme]

To be clear, this is still happening. Found charges on my bill going back to April (guess I should look more closely at these things).  I was being charged for a Youtube Plus subscription (which I would love to have but don't).

As everyone else said, no activity on my google account (I have no paid subscriptions through it). Also, I have an Iphone, so there is no Google Play on my phone.

After 30 minutes on chat help and 90 minutes I was able to get them to block third party charges. I wasn't aware that third party charges were a thing.

So, I'm out like 90 bucks, which really stings. The people at support haven't been educated about this scam yet, so it is really difficult to get the problem dealt with. I'm in contact with Bango, but have very little faith in their help.

I feel like this is really on Rogers. There seem to be no safeguards in place here and whether or not I get a refund seems to depend totally on the mood of the tech person I speak to.

This doesn't seem like phishing, my google account was not used. This is a lax protocol for authorizing payments and its inexcusable.

[Bob8888]

Received a call from Rogers after they'd been contacted by CCTS.  CCTS had told me that this appeared to a breach of privacy.  Rogers was ready to refund the mystery charge, however I told them that Bango had already done so.  My account was also closed off to any third party charges and billings.  

The one thing that stands out is that there has been no explanation of why and how the extra $60 charge appeared on my statement.  I'd take this further along, but am not sure in what direction to take.  Could possibly be too many legal issues to look into and I do not have the expertise to carry on.  

[Xdj]

Bob8888,
Thank you for your update!
It's amazing how no one knows how this is happening and yet, it continues without Rogers implementing some sort of block on all accounts for third-party charges.
Obviously, there is something wrong with this system that is allowing charges without a paper trail and Rogers needs to step up and stop it!!!

X