Beware: Club Blinko

I have recently started to receive txt messages from some thing called club blinko on my Spanish mobile, this was quite annoying and to top it off, they charged me 33 cents per text as well.

I do not recall signing up to any texting club, so had no idea how to stop this robbery.

After trawling through the Spanish web site of Club Blinko, which was of course in Spanish only,  came accross instructions how to stop the texts, and it has appeared to work.

So, if anyone else is unfortunate enough to be inflicted with Club Blinko on their spanish mobile, txt,  Baja  to  5505  to stop it

Beware.

Mr Kevin,

i´m really thankfull to you, because i lost my handsome balance with this ** EDITED - Foul language ** CLUB BLINKO, 50€  plus from my account well, i just got message from VODAFONE that

after txt to vodafone

type BAJA and send it to 5505

Free Information: you have successfully killed all the services of 5505

lets see what happend next. with my number because i just stopped toped up my account.

have a nice time

regards

Faraz

Firstly Faraz, there's no reason to say f*****g , ok ? We get the drift without it.

-------------------------------------------------------

Hi Mr Kevin

We have a Spanish mobile on Movistar, & don't want to get the same problem. As soon as our Spanish mobile's switched on when we reach Spain there's often a few texts all come from Movistar often with different numbers &, until you look, you don't know what they say. Reading texts is free so we'd not concern ourselves but you're saying each time you open a text from Club Blinko they take 33c from your credit. So, how do these texts arrive ? I mean do you know they're from these people ? Do you just see a random number like we see with Movistar, I wonder. Any further help ?

EDITED : Just Googled quickly & many are complaining they've lost a lot.. Check this out.   AND HERE TOO   GETS WORSE HERE   

Hi More,

I just don't know how I got on to Blinko.

I am usually quite good at tecno things, mobile, computer etc, but this one got past me. As I can read and understand written spanish quite well, I found the way out tucked up in the T&C's on the spanish Blinko web site.

Any way, all's well now, not had any texts since I sent BAJA to them.

By the way,going to the International tonight for another one of Suzie & Tony's menue.

Hi Mr Kev again

As we don't send texts & those we receive are from Movistar I've issued instructions to my OH that he should just delete without reading any texts that come in to prevent us getting caught out.

Having said that we went to the Guardamar Movistar shop last September as we knew we had to register our mobile & the woman did it & gave us a copy of the computer readout. We had to request it, she assured us it was done but we had no proof we had without the print off.

When we were there early this year OH got a Movistar text , they come in under a 3 number code but different most times. It obviously was in Spanish but he saw words that made him think it was to do with registering the mobile & we'd done that ! It said Nov 09. We kept text & went to the shop again & showed the woman. She obviously knew what it all meant, took the SIM card from the mobile which han't been done previously (they'd put the phone number against OH's passport ref before) & typed the serial number into her pc then asked my OH to sign on an electronic pad. She then handed us a printed copy of what was on the pc & this had OH's signature on.

Had we not seen the text & queried it we'd have had our mobile cut off after Nov 09.

Wait for the flood of members of every Spanish forum going saying ' our SIM's been chopped off, we didn't know we needed to register the SIM against a passport number.'

Enjoy your Chinese meal tonight.

I got the same message from vodafone even though when I got the sim back in 2006, I gave passport NIE details.

Still have to do mine, when you live here it's not that urgent, Nov 8th will do.

It's all to do with government anti terrorist measures.

We all need to be carefull these day's, my lastest phone ca even get virus's and spyware like computer can.

Be carefull out there.

Just a quick one, somewhat off-topic and for which I shall probably be castigated, but...

Morerosado posted: Firstly Faraz, there's no reason to say f*****g , ok ? We get the drift without it.

It might be just me, as a grown-up reader of broad-sheet newspapers which regularly carry profanity in reported speech, as well as a good amount of modern literature, replete with such industrial language, but does anyone see the above and read it as eff-asterisk-asterisk-asterisk-asterisk-asterisk-gee?

Sorry, but I simply see a censored version of the word and automatically, sub-consciously read it as the word as it was meant to appear. So, what use is the coy, veiled version of the curse?

Now, I realise that, for some people, such language cannot and will never be acceptable, but surely, in such cases, "there's no reason for profanity" would be a more suitable chastisement. After all, I can only assume you were spelling the word in your head while typing, to make sure you used the correct number of asterisks.

I promise I'm not just being a [expletive deleted], for being a [expletive deleted]'s sake. I really couldn't give a *#$%. I simply don't understand the logic.

Ok, HybridAnglo

 "there's no reason for profanity" 

EOS edited it anyway.

Hi Mr Kevin, I just had a PM from a member...........

'I sent a text by opening one of the club blinko msgs typed in baja and sent it to 55052...but then I also open a new text and done the same thing cannot remember which one got me the reply but after doing that I received a msg saying in Spanish you have now cancelled your services with us...and since then I have had nothing...I was getting up to 6-8 texts a day so annoying...within 2 days 10 euros credit was gone'

You said 5505 ! (Leaving off a 2) Now I'm more confused.

Hi More,

Para cancelar una o todas tus suscripciones env?a BAJA al 5505.

The above can be found on the link: http://www.blinkogold.es/es/blinkogold2/html/info_precios.bsp

This did the trick for me, perhaps there are other solutions.

Kev.

Thanks Kev, that's cleared that up. I'm writing a word doc to take with us with copies of the thread so if we are hit by this we'll be able to cope.

Something similar happened to my wife as well.  Is there any way of getting your money back from these thieves?

David

About as much chance as getting anything back from any thief, I would guess, David.

From what I've Googled it seems they text you &, when you open the text, you give them carte blanche (somehow) to nick your credit in various ways. Great scam, I've read reports from all over the world.

I have opened only one of the messages I've received from these fraudsters, but they still manage to charge me for each message they send--- whether I open them or not!!! I've tried sending texts to 5505( meesage wouldn't go)and, 795505, and they tell me that I'm not subscribed, so they can't unsubscribe me!!! If that's the case, then why are they charging me? I'm going to try a SMALL top up, and see how long it lasts. Any additional help would be much appreciated