Fraudulent Third Party Charges Bango

[A_Abraham]

Yesterday I received last month bill,

With $89.79 third party charges from Bango, for services that I never used, bought or authorized.

The charges are made to Google, and the SIM card has been in an iPhone since we moved few months ago to Fido (which apparently was not good decision), I called Fido and I was instructed to contact Bango. I sent them an email and I am still waiting for response.

In brief, I was charged $89.79 fraudulently, had to spend more than 90 minutes on phone with Fido, was obliged to contact a company that I didn't know it exists till my service provider asked me to contact, and I am waiting for their reply.

I just started to search the topic and I found so many similar complaints regarding the same exact issue, seriously, Fido doesn't want to fix that.

Thanks Fido for your very poor customer service.

[yingwu1]

I have similar problem.  To start Fido is at least incompetent for listing on the first page of the bill (which is what people look at when they go to pay) the charges as "extra usage "  .   I have been using cellular services for decades and any time I see this I assume I went over on my data plan or made long distance charges.  This is not "usage" of their services.  So, I never authorized or ever used Apple music on my phone and when I realized what this extra charge was I complained.  I took me multiple tries, ask Jack is always too busy to put me in the queue and have to wait over an hour on hold by phone with the most annoying music.  When  I did finally report it they sent me to Bango, which I never heard of.  Bango won't take any responsibility and I don't have any business with them anyway.  I deal with Fido.  Finally Fido credited me half of the charges I paid over six months.  But then I get my new bill and the charge is still there even though they assured me it would be cancelled immediately.  On the phone again today and after waiting and listening to this stupid song that just keeps repeating "Jealousy I can't explain" over and over again I paid online, minus the third party charges.  They finally picked up the phone after 38 minutes.  Just shy of an hour on the phone and the woman can't help me because there is a tool missing from their program that allows them to cancel the charge so I will be charged again next month unless I call and speak to a supervisor.  Time to contact the CRTC and the news media.  And she repeated 3 times that I must have accidently pressed a wrong button to subscribe to the app.

[FidoStephane]

Hi there @yingwu1

We'll send you a PM so our support team can have another look at this with you 

Keep an eye on your inbox

[Marksu]

I got the same issue, contact fido, they asked me send email to bango, they charged me for third party without my permit, and asked me to solve the problem by myself, so bad the customer service. I am wondering I may get other charges next bills, time to switch to other carriers.

[Delan1]

If you're in Canada here is the fraudulent line.

+1 888-495-8501

Report this incident to them. If you did not subscribe to Bango and you're being charged for that that's a fruad and Fido should take care of that being that youre being billed by Fido and not Bango. Fido can certainly take care of the situation especially if it's a fraudulent one.

[HJR]

I have the same issue. Called Fido and receive ZERO help.Now waiting for

bango to respond. Explain to me how I can disable that if I don't have a google account connected to the play store in my tablet. My understanding is that I need to enable "add Fido billing" on the play store to allow third party billing. So if I don't have that, how did I get charged.  So much help from the rep that said if it wasn't me who did it someone might've picked up my tablet and had done it. That's funny coz that tablet has been collecting dust. 

[FidoKenny]

Hello @HJR

Seems like what you are talking about here are the same type of charges mentioned here on this thread.

Fido is the billing agent for providers such as Google and others when customers make purchases or subscribes to services on their devices.

All third party purchases appear on the bill with the provider’s contact information.

If you have questions about your bill, make sure to contact us when you get a chance. You can find all the ways to reach us Contact us | Get help with your Fido services | Fido

[sumitdhameja]

Hi Abraham,

Were you able to resolve this with Fido? The ownership should be on Fido to verify whether those third party charges are valid or not. I received a similar bill for $94 and am trying to get this resolved.

[A_Abraham]

Not Fido,

I had to send a few e-mails and wait for a few weeks to solve that through Bango.

Fido was not really helpful or supportive, and the most annoying thing, they just deny any responsibility for that.

[GreenChris90]

I just got this too how is fido not doing anything, so useless

[Sandsmom]

I am currently dealing with this. Just recieved a $95 dollar charge. Like I can afford that. Fido was of no help. 

Has anyone contacted the police about this ? As fido is clearly not looking out for its customers. More focused on their money.

[GreenChris90]

Me too it was around $95, after contacting Fido i got half back for a charge i did not authorize. Awesome customer support, I can't wait for my term to be up so i can swap off Fido. I've contacted Bango with no help, hopefully my credit card can just dispute the charge

[FidoKenny]

Hello @Sandsmon, @GreenChris90 and @lucycai

I'm sorry to learn agbout your experience. We know how inconvenient receiving unexepected charges can be.

When making purchases or subscribing to 3rd party services, those charges appear on your Fido bill. You shoudl be able to see all the contact information to reach the company that charged you on your invoice.

To verify this with you, we will need access to your account. You can find all the ways to reach us here.

[sumitdhameja]

Why should the consumer reach out to third party when they havent made any purchases and its charged through Fido bill. Its like when you go to Walmart to return something and they are telling you to go directly to supplier. Such a poor customer service experience. I think I should just go ahead and change my telecom provider

[A_Abraham]

We have been hearing the same point that Bango is responsible for this charge, but what did Fido do?

How about some stats? how many Bango actual legitimate transactions go through and how many are fraudulent,

At least Fido can disable this payment to Bango by default, and if a customer wants to enable it, the customer calls and Fido enables this feature for that customer,

What happens now, every victim spends long calls with Fido and Bange, and all that Fido can do, they offer to block this for the future, why not block this by default and open it by request rather than the opposite.

I totally disagree that Fido is not responsible, and I will quote your words for that, as you mentioned, Bango is the third-party billing company for many cell phone companies, I wonder why there are no other complaints online about fraudulent charges with other providers? Maybe because they did something proactive to protect their customers, maybe because they care about their customers and their customer care.

[Cawtau · Accepted solution]

Hello Sumitdhameja,

  Welcome to the community!

  Sorry to hear you've received unexpected charges on your bill. However, I don't think many people understand what Direct Carrier Billing (DCB) is and how it works. Direct Carrier Billing is a type of mobile payment method that lets consumers make purchases and add the charges these transactions incur to their mobile phone bills. In this case, Bango is DCB provider who has a billing relationship with Fido (or other mobile provider).

  It's important to note that neither Bango nor Fido are actually the source of the charges. It's similar to PayPal having a billing relationship with a bank account. Making a purchase from, say Walmart, via PayPal would result in the monies debited from your bank account. If there were fraudulent purchases, your bank wouldn't be able to investigate because the transaction would have been through PayPal. Your bank wouldn't be able to contact PayPal on your behalf either. You would need to contact PayPal to sort out. Similarly, Fido (or other mobile provider) would not be able to investigate any charges. They only know that some purchase was made via DCB. That's why people are told to reach out to Bango.

  I understand that many people might not have been aware of the relationship with Bango. However, if third-party billing is enabled, Bango would be the provider. As suggested by some other community members, here and here, it is possible to disable DCB.

  I also understand the desire to switch providers out of frustration. However, you should note that Bango is the DCB provider for more than just Fido.

Hope this helps 😀

Cheers

[A_Abraham]

Hi Cawtau,

We have been hearing the same point that Bango is responsible for this charge, but what did Fido do?

How about some stats? how many Bango actual legitimate transactions go through and how many are fraudulent,

At least Fido can disable this payment to Bango by default, and if a customer wants to enable it, the customer calls and Fido enables this feature for that customer,

What happens now, every victim spends long calls with Fido and Bange, and all that Fido can do, they offer to block this for the future, why not block this by default and open it by request rather than the opposite.

I totally disagree that Fido is not responsible, and I will quote your words for that, as you mentioned, Bango is the third-party billing company for many cell phone companies, I wonder why there are no other complaints online about fraudulent charges with other providers? Maybe because they did something proactive to protect their customers, maybe because they care about their customers and their customer care.

[GreenChris90]

we never purchased or subscribed to anything. I contacted customer support too.

[FidoAnthonyZ]

Hello @GreenChris90,

These charges are created by Bango and just relayed onto your bill, so the best contact would be Bango. You mentioned contacting them, what happened exactly?

Let us know! 

[GreenChris90]

nothing happened. it has been a couple of days and nobody has gotten back to me,  I agree with the other users here, why should we have to be contacting them when we never authorized these charges

[flas99]

Just received $94.87third party charges from Bango too
Contacted FIDO and of course they said they have nothing to do with it and that its my own problem
I asked when I gave consent to 3rd party charges , but they just said that if I want they can block them in the future
Horrible service