What Are These Extra Charges On My Bill?

This could mean anything! However what we are about to talk about are charges that do not involve going over allowances or usage abroad. What we are talking about are those charges to pay for things here and there, maybe you used your phone to buy an app on the Store or donated to charity via text.

What Services Can Be Charged to My Phone Bill?

You can use your mobile to pay for various items nowadays and these charges get added to your phone bill. This is how charity giving via text works as you donate through your mobile provider to your chosen charity. For example Children in Need text message donations. You will notice these donations added to your phone bill and automatically come out of your account. Subscription services like Spotify, Apple Music or BT Sport will charge you monthly on top of your standard phone bill if you choose to add your phone number as the billing platform. Many people find it easier to use their phone to pay for things as it’s not an instant charge, they only pay when their phone bill is charged to their bank.

How Do I Know What I’m Paying For?

On your phone bill, every month at the bottom you will see a section called “Third Party Services”. This only gets listed when you are using your phone bill to pay for services. In this section you will find an itemised account of what charges you have added onto your phone bill that month. Usually they have a name written next to them to make them easily identifiable but sometimes all you get is a number. Don’t worry, this number can be entered into the Phone-paid Services Authority website to find out what it is.

Most services you will enter also send a text message confirmation of billing. This means you will have written confirmation of services, like a receipt, even though your bill might not have come through from your network yet.

I Never Signed Up For This!

Recently we have noticed a high volume of people have been unknowingly subscribed into a weekly competition or quiz. This seems to usually occur from a prize draw offer where you text the company and they charge you for your entry. What is not so obvious is that some of these prize draws are weekly events and so you are being charged weekly even though you might of only wanted to enter once. It is key that whenever you think about using your mobile bill to pay for services, you know exactly what you are signing up for. The truth is most of us don’t check our bills, we just see the money leave the bank and complain that this month was higher or be happy that this month is a normal amount. This is why it is very important to check your bill as soon as you think you are being charged too much! Third party text services, like weekly competition draws or quizzes will send you a text every time you are about to be charged to bill. Some people assume that by blocking the number, they won’t receive the text and therefore will not be charged. This is not the case. You must follow proper procedure to stop these services, the most common Opt-Out method is by texting the word “STOP” to a phone number outlined in your initial confirmation text.

If you no longer have these texts then you can go to the Phone-Paid Services Authority who will advise the best way to resolve this subscription.

Can I Block This Service?

For our Small Business customers we are able to put a block on the ability to use your phone bill in this way. No matter what service, good or bad, you might want to charge to your phone bill, will be blocked by by the network and so this will protect your bill