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***

[RogersZia]

Hello @Xdj,

Thank you for posting your query in the Rogers Community Forums. 

Does your monthly invoice indicate that the charges were billed to the tablet line? Is there anyone else who would have access to your tablet? For any questions about the billing or support with the application, you would have to refer to the provider’s contact information in the “Details of third party charges” section of your bill.

If you'd like us to block third party charges on your account please reach out to us via PM @CommunityHelps and we'll be happy to do so.

RogersZia

[Xdj]

Hi RogersZia,

The tablet has been off for months without the SIM card in it, so there is no access to Data with it.

No one in my family has access to it since they all have their own devices!

And yes, the charges were on the tablet's phone number (Data number if you prefer).

I have never received a confirmation email to say I purchased a movie or rented one...which I haven't!

It makes no sense how this happened and when I called Rogers earlier today, they said they can not do anything!

because I've never have used the tablet for anything except for email and browsing the internet in bed. It hasn't even left my house in two years since I got it!

It makes no sense.....

How do I know it's not happening right now? There's no way to find out!!!!

Thanks,

X

[Gdkitty]

I am wondering if the google account is tied with the phone number, etc overall?

If your google account was compromised, then they could be using it to purchase the movies, etc?
You might not be seeing the emails, if again they have access to the account, and were in the email and have deleted them?

[Xdj]

Hi,
Valid point, but if a google account is accessed by an unknown device, I would have received an alert, which I never received!
The tablet and my phone are tied to the same google account.
Plus, there are no records in my google account of movie purchases and it was last used a year ago. You can not delete that record!

Thanks,

X

[Xdj]

Howdy,

For anyone following this issue I have an update:

Bango returned my email but they needed more info, like my mobile number for the device used and model of the device.

I'm still waiting to hear back from Google.

I spoke to another Rogers agent today. I wanted them to suspend Direct Carrier Billing on the phone number that was billed for the movies.

The agent was quite surprised when he walked me through my Google Play account and there were no records of the movies rented/purchased through the account attached to my tablet. The last activity was over a year ago. And I have a credit on the account from a gift card I received a couple of years ago.

So, at this point, I have to pay my Rogers bill with the extra $100 on it until I hear back from Google and Bango. I'm hoping I get a refund or.....I guess I'm not sure what I'll do!

X

[Xdj]

Greetings to All,

Update on Third-Party charges and Direct Carrier Billing.

So, Google got back to me via email because there isn’t a phone number to contact them for help. They are looking for transaction #’s for the movies on my Roger’s bill. Guess what, there are none.

I spent 90 minutes speaking to a Rogers rep trying to figure out how these changes are happening. He could not find the transaction numbers Google is looking for either.

Google asked me if anyone had access to my tablet, and again, I told them in my reply that no, no one has access to my device besides myself, and I did not buy/rent any movies which is proven by a lack of activities on my Google Play account this year! So, if I or anyone else used my tablet to order said movies, there would be a record of it! When you think of it, if I did purchase/rent them, where are the links to download/watch them? Guess what, direct carrier billing isn’t even active on my Google Play account!

Now Google is looking for the exact same information I sent to them yesterday for today. I guess they don’t read their forms thoroughly!!!

How is this happening? I only have one Google Play account which shows no records of activities this year. Charges Google can’t explain. Bango.com hasn’t gotten back to me with any updates from our last correspondence. And Rogers is looking for payment…Very frustrating!!!

Today's conversation with Rogers unearthed more unauthorized activities that will be on my next month's bill!

So how do I prevent this from happening again and again when there’s no paper trail from the transactions…I suggested a new mobile number to replace the number that is getting billed! And so, Rogers changed the number for me. But I’m still stuck with almost $150 worth of movies and the mystery of what  is going on!

Now for some humour on the subject: It was suggested to me by a Rogers agent that maybe, I’m serious about this, I could not make this up; that maybe someone entered my home without my knowledge, took the SIM card out of the tablet and put it into another device; purchased the movies over 4 days, got back into my home without my knowledge and replaced the SIM card back into the tablet and left.

The rep was serious…can you believe that? First, I was home for all the days of unauthorized access happened. Plus, I have a security system with cameras. I’m pretty sure no one accessed my home without my knowledge!!!

I think that was a subtle way of saying they don’t believe me!!!!

FYI, my background is in electronics engineering and have close to 30 years in the computer/IT field with system/network administration experience. I have experienced erroneous network issues before as well as POS systems with payment terminals (Credit/debit card pin pads) problems. But this issue is a head-scratcher! And with 3 parties involved, it just makes things worse. Everybody’s pointing fingers at each other….

I think that’s it…until next time.

Cheers,

X

[Xdj]

Update:

I heard back from Bango today:

"Hello,
Thank you for this information!
The charges you have received were due to purchases made for apps or for premium content within such apps. I have checked your account and I can confirm that the charges you have received were due to purchases made in the Google Play Store.
Please find below more details about the latest purchases:
Name of the purchase: Ford v Ferrari
Link to the purchase: https://play.google.com/store/movies/details/Ford_V_Ferrari?id=XYt27tXJXgA&hl=en_CA
Are there any other Google accounts on the device? 
Here is a Support Article by Google on how to view your purchase history: (If you have multiple devices on your account, we recommend checking each Google account.)
https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/2850369?hl=en-CA
You can also prevent accidental purchases on the Google Play Store by setting up password protection for all your purchases:
https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/1626831?hl=en-GB
Additionally, we can place a payment blocker on your account to prevent further charges.
Please let us know if you would like this payment blocker added or if you require any other assistance.

Kind Regards,

Bango Support"

So, they say the purchases were made through the Google Play Store. Very interesting, because nothing has been purchased from my Google Play account since last year! I ONLY have one Play account. Not sure where they are getting that information from. Also, according to getelastic.com, "Carrier billing typically uses a two-factor authentication method. The user enters his mobile number and receives a one-time password via text message to complete credentials."

Yeah, that never happened!!! Also, Direct Carrier Billing is not an option for my payments, only a credit card.

Just a reminder, I have never heard of direct carrier billing until a few days ago!

 And if I but a block on transactions on my account, I will no longer be able to make legit purchases! 

Google got back to me as well today:

"Hello,

Thank you for your reply.

I appreciate your effort in sending the screenshot.

In order to proceed further with this refund request, Could you please contact Direct Carrier Billing (Mobile service provider) and provide us with the Correlation ID to resolve this issue?

Awaiting for your response!

Thanks,"

This is a joke because my previous email to Google stated that I spent 90 minutes with a Rogers agent trying to find the Transaction#'s and Correlation ID's for the movies but to no avail. I guess they don't keep track of them? You see, there's no paper trail for all these purchases on my end. No order history in my Google Play account, no emails or texts. No authentication what so ever for the purchases..... So how do they know it's from my Google Play account? How the heck does it appear on my Rogers Bill? Does Rogers take it in faith, there's got be some sort of tracking process.

How is this happening?

And to make things clear with everyone, consider my device that's in question, is locked in a safe and I'm the only one with the combination! No one has access to my device!

And just for argument sakes, if someone did use my device or me, why aren't there any order history records for transactions in my Google Play account???

Google (Alphabet) is one of the largest companies in the world and there are no phone numbers to contact them for support! 

Now the total for all rentals/purchases is $150. There are 3 more movies that will be on my next bill. 

Will this ever end?

Regards,

X

[Xdj]

Update:

Still waiting to hear back from Bango.com by email, I responded to their questions on Friday.

I actually got a call back from Google on Saturday night. They needed the Transaction #'s/Correlation ID's from the movie purchases. 

So, I told them there are none so they wanted Roger's phone number so they could call them and get me on the line as well to figure things out.

There I was on hold for a while, 15-20 minutes later a Rogers agent is on the line. A little confused I explain the whole situation, (5th agent over 4 days), and asked if they had spoken to a Google rep. and the Roger's agent hadn't spoken to a google rep so I explained what they wanted to know.

After explaining everything to Roger's about the unauthorized movie charges on my bill and the issues of my new ignite TV install earlier that day, she actually removed the charges for me.

Wow, was I surprised and very grateful because it was taking too long to communicate with three companies and myself as the middle man for something no one could understand what was going on! (If you don't know what happened, go to the first post)

They also blocked all third party purchases on all my lines so hopefully, this doesn't happen again. Also, the number that was being charged for the movies was changed so it's not connected to my account.

I'm happy Rogers took control of the situation but it's still a mystery how I was being charged for movies that literally just showed up on my account without any paper trail or confirmations on the purchases.

There is a flaw somewhere in the system and it needs to be fixed! As I pointed out, I only use a credit card for my online transaction just for this reason!

The movies were supposedly purchased through my Google Play account and charged via direct carrier billing to Rogers, but there are no charges in my Play account, no transaction history what so ever!!!

Cheers,

X

[Maggie2020]

I’m a new Rogers customer, I got my phone in September 2019. Around December, I noticed my phone bill was getting incredibly high but I thought that I had over used my data or something, so I paid it. These charges average at about $100 extra on top of my phone bill now and have been happening every month since around December to now. When I checked my bill I noticed I was being charged third party fees for a game I was not playing or have even heard of. So I contacted Rogers who insisted it was me doing it to which I said it was not. They gave me the contact information for the game and told me to take it up with them. So I wrote them an email and got the information that these third party charges are coming off google play store. I wrote on “share a concern” and got a number to call. So I called and was informed that I would be getting a full refund from google by the Rogers representative who called on my behalf. I was also told that someone has contacted Rogers in November and changed all my account information to fraudulent information. These people have had access to my account for months and I have not known or been informed by Rogers of any changes. I changed my passwords and set up a pin on the account for when I call. I was told that this fraudulent information was removed from my account and mine was replacing it. I called again a few days later after not hearing back about my refund expressing concerns that google may have the wrong information because of this fraud. They insisted it was my information on my account. A couple days later, I checked my information on my Rogers app and noticed that all the information was still this fraudulent persons pretending to be me. So I edited out what I could by myself and immediately contacted Rogers about it. They told me they were opening a fraud case about what had happened, two weeks after my initial call with Rogers. They told me I would have to wait until the fraud department finished the case. To date I still have not heard back from either party on what is happening with my case.

Now I think it’s worth while and cheaper to close my Rogers account completely instead of having to continue to pay for these third party charges from this fraudulent activity.

My family have been Rogers customers for years and I have had the worst experience so far. I am extremely unhappy. I do not know how to get their attention and take this seriously so I am posting here.

[RogersMaude]

Good day @Maggie2020,

Thanks for your post and welcome to the Rogers Community! I'm sorry to hear you received an invoice with unexpected charges. I understand the frustration generated by this situation. We therefore certainly want to try and help you resolve this, if it hasn't been yet.

Have you heard back from someone from our Management Office since submitting a complaint through the Share a Concern page?

We are saddened to see that you're considering cancelling your account with us due to this and we'd like the chance to review what took place more in depth. To do so, please send a private message to @CommunityHelps so we can access your account and get started. If you are not familiar with our private messaging system please click here.

Looking forward to your PM!

RogersMaude

[Jbeg17]

Hi,

I am at my wits end. On my April bill there were $23 in Google charges on my Rogers tablet number. We didn’t even have the tablet on at that time. I immediately called Rogers and was told they could do nothing. I assured them I did not approve these charges and never purchased anything. Rogers informed me I had to contact Bango the payment company that does the billing. In addition, I had Rogers confirm to me that as of May 5th all third party charges would be blocked. Although this was annoying to deal with, it was only $23 and I was assured future charges were blocked.
I had to email the Bango company 4 times (over a span of 3 weeks) to finally get a reply. Bango informed me that since the charges were from google I had to deal with them directly. After searching our google play store it was evident that the charges were not there. A few days later our May bill came out. There was now $93 of fraudulent charges on our May bill as well. I immediately call Rogers and ask why, since I was informed there was a block on third party charges as of May 5th, and all of the charges had dates after May 5th. The agent on the phone told me that the block can take up to 2 weeks to apply, which in my opinion doesn’t make sense. In the meantime, I had gotten an email from google saying that I had to contact my carrier and obtain the “transaction ID or correlation ID” from my carrier that is associated with the charges so they could attempt to find them in their system. I asked Rogers for this information and they were unable to provide it and once again said that I had to contact the Bango company. After over 45 minutes on the phone I had to hang up without any answers. I then contacted Rogers over the live chat. I once again requested the transaction ID or correlation ID. (I did request this through Bango as well but they just sent back a generic message and they do no have a phone number I can call). The agent in the chat gave me numbers for the transaction ID that did not match the format google referred to when requesting this information. The agent also said there were charges applied already for June 7, and June 9. He told me that the block wasn’t on all possible places that the charges could come from, and added it for me. I also called Rogers again and had them change the number associated with the tablet. When the Rogers agent searched the tablet record he had found charges from 2018 for that number, even though we didn’t get the tablet until Sept 2019. I contacted google with the transaction IDs that Rogers gave me. They insist they have no record of these charges and once again said I had to contact Rogers. I am at my wits end and keep getting sent in circles by companies that have no real interest in helping me. After being a Rogers customer for many years I am so incredibly disappointed with the service. At one point on a recent call, I was given a $50 credit to my Rogers account. Although I appreciate the gesture, this amount is less than half of the charges that have been accrued and clearly the issue is still on going. We received the tablet “free of charge” for a promotion back in September. If I simply cancel that line we will have to pay the $200 device balance. It may come to this if I do not get this issue resolved, and in that case I can guarantee that when our phone contracts are over we will leave Rogers altogether.
To compound the problem, Rogers does not have email communications, and google and bango only have email communications. There is no way for me to send the messages from google to rogers. If these companies could somehow be in contact rather than having me as the middle man running in circles maybe there could be some sort of resolution.
I changed the number yesterday and I am planning to call later this week to see if any more charges have been added, if so I will have to bite the bullet and pay the cancellation fee for the device balance. This is just ridiculous that I receive no support from rogers other than sending me to other companies. The agent in the live chat could clearly tell the charges were fraudulent, but insisted that google had to do the research. Google says they cannot help. Bango also says they cannot help and are very slow to answer messages, and usually send generic responses.

[RogersTony]

Hello, @Jbeg17

Welcome to the Rogers Community Forums!

It's really disappointing to hear about your experience trying to get these third-party charges resolved on your account. I can imagine how completely frustrating this entire ordeal has been,

We'd really like the opportunity to investigate this for you and see what can be done to get this resolved for you and try to make it right. We'll need to take a closer look at the notes on your file to determine what steps to take. If you have emails from Bango and Google that you can share with us we'd like to see those also. 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.

RogersTony

[Xdj]

Hey,
I'm sorry to hear you are experiencing the same issues that I have!
Yes, still have...
This Carrier Direct Billing is awful. Seriously, dealing with three companies who for all intents and purposes, do not communicate with each other!
fI’ve spent over $9000 with Rogers in the last 12 months on my services, so I believe I have the right to speak out on issues with the system.
As you know I have been dealing with this issue for over 4 months and still have not been refunded all my fraudulent charges.
I'm still out $50 dollars which was supposed to be refunded by Bango.com, but when I responded to there last email to go ahead with the refund, I never heard back from them since March. I've sent multiple emails but no response from them. And since there are no phone numbers to contact a live agent, you're screwed!
I appreciate the moderators here but they have no idea how to handle this situation.
I ended up paying the fraudulent charges on my Rogers bill assuming that Bango was going to refund me...Yeah, that did not work out!!!
The only way Rogers refunded the first batch of charges was I had a very good agent who felt bad for me because 1, she was the 5th agent I spoke to about the issue and 2, I just had the Rogers Ignite TV system installed and the techs screwed up some of my other Rogers services when the new TV system was installed and I had to fix them myself.
The only way the fraudulent charges stopped was at my suggestion, I asked an agent to change my tablet number. And speaking about Rogers agents, I had a few of them who gave me the most bizarre scenarios on how someone scammed me for the fraudulent movie charges on my account. They had no idea how this could happen without it being my fault.
Here is one example I have to share again: It was suggested to me by a Rogers agent that maybe, I’m serious about this, I could not make this up; “that maybe someone entered my home without my knowledge, took the SIM card out of the tablet and put it into another device; purchased the movies over 4 days, got back into my home without my knowledge and replaced the SIM card back into the tablet and left”. Seriously!!!
That was the most frustrating problem for me, that there was no way anyone had access to my tablet when these charges were happening.
Also, there were no transaction ID or correlation ID #’s with the charges, so basically no paper trail!
I sympathize with you Jbeg17, apparently, Rogers, Google, and Bango.com have no idea themselves how these fraudulent charges happen and blame each other for them.
All I can suggest is keep on top of it and keep contacting them to fix the issue and try to get your charges refunded.
Another big issue I have is contacting Bango.com, every time I reply to their emails it would bounce back saying that the email service has been blocked…(Rogers email address) so I had to make up a new email and copy n paste the previous email with the case#. And when I did get a response from Bango, it had a different case # which probably hindered their responses to my issue. But as I said before, they have not returned an email in months, so I’m pretty sure I’m out of the other fraudulent charges ($50).

I wish you the best of luck in getting your refund!

X

[OLDYELLR]

Rogers should do the right thing and refund customers these fraudulent charges directly and go after the third party for restitution and perhaps a penalty. Rogers, as  a corporation, has far more clout than individual customers.

[Snoble]

Just checked my phone bill and the same thing $58.00 for 4 movies through bango. I am shocked by all the fraudulence people are going through with this Bango as its happening a lot. Why can't Roger block this company from allowing these transactions to happen. So I am guess before I will get this resolved I will have a few more months of charges from Bango, It is obviously a fraud transaction as I see it all over the internet. Come on Rogers do something about this as this is not good and does not look good for you. I am thinking my contract is almost up and as I am reading more about this fraudulent transaction and how people are suffering and incurring so much dept from it I might as well just cancel my contract and pay you out, makes more sense instead of having to go through the headache the people above have had to go through. So very not impressed I was actually shopping over the weekend to get the next upgrade phone though Rogers. but from what I am reading and what I see on my bill today and reading the comments on the internet Rogers is allowing these fraudulent transactions to happen I am in shock and so ever disappointed.

[jlov1234]

I'm having the exact same issue. Rogers is useless and will not even attempt to assist me in resolving this issue. What was the contact email you used for Google?

[RogersRob · Accepted solution]

Hello @Snoble, 

Thank you for your post and welcome to the Community Forums! 

We know how unpleasant it can be to see unexpected charges on your invoice, you have come to the right place. 

Have you contacted Bango to request a refund of the charges? 
You can find their 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. 

@jlov1234 , welcome to the Community! I see you've reached out to us via private message, we'll be happy to continue the conversation there.
 

Regards,  

RogersRob
 

[Jbeg17]

I highly recommend changing the number associated with the device. It won’t fix anything that’s already happened but so far there haven’t been any more fraudulent charges since we’ve changed the number.
When contacting google I used this email, but ultimately they were not able to help as they had no record of the charges: googlepay-support@google.com
I wish everyone the best of luck, I understand the stress these issues can cause.

[jlov1234]

Hi there,
I went in store today and told them about this entire scam. She said she would be able to credit me back once she talked to a manager. I changed my phone # and email associated with the rogers bill and I've already switched the authentication process on my google play accounts btw

[jlov1234]

I think we'll be taking this to our local news station. Seems like its a rogers breach