Subscription scam-ads on Neowin Mobile

[VSG]

Guys, I've had my plenty share of problems with your mobile site. Pop-ups that didn't go away and other stuff. But what happened this morning really is a new low for Neowin.

I opened a link on my cell phone and while I was reading the first lines of the article about a Twitter outage on Neowin on my iPhone, a white pop-up appeared that didn't have any text or a way to close it. So I skipped back and reopened the website.

 

A few minutes later I got an SMS that said I had purchased a subscription service for 4,99 Euros a week! A few hours later that 5 Euros were billed to my phone number. It seems this is a known scam by some ad-scammers. They reside outside the EU or any other country with an extradition agreement so you can't get a hold on them.

 

I've spent hours today undoing everything they have done to cancel that subscription. If I will get my 5 Euros back, I don't know yet, but it is unlikely.

So who's to blame?

 

Well, I blame you guys at Neowin - at least to an extent. It is nothing new that whatever ad-partner you have it's the worst of the worst. And all you do is lean back and say "hey, it's not us, it's our ad-partners". Well guess what, you live off the ads, the ad-companies are scammers so you're part of the system.

 

I activated a lock with my carrier so something like this can't happen again.

But unless Neowin changes their ad-policy, I'm putting a lock on you, too. No matter how interesting the articles are, the way you do business is simply … meh.

 

VSG

[Brandon H Supervisor]

no offense but Neowin is doing a lot more than you think

 

@Steven P. sends a complaint email every time a bad ad is reported and Neowin has even tried switching ad companies a few times so you really can't say they are dong nothing when it is the ad companies that are letting these slip past the permitted list.

[VSG]

21 minutes ago, Brandon H said:

no offense but Neowin is doing a lot more than you think

 

@Steven P. sends a complaint email every time a bad ad is reported and Neowin has even tried switching ad companies a few times so you really can't say they are dong nothing when it is the ad companies that are letting these slip past the permitted list.

Oh my, I must've been wrong then. 

 

A "complaint email"? "Even tried switching ad companies"?

You see, your post sums up the problem pretty well, actually. I could just point to my first post - they are part of the system.

 

So yes, they tried switching companies. Good for them. At the end of the day, I have paid money because of a scam and Neowin gets their revenue from the ads - whoever you put in between also makes a profit off of the situation, but everyone in the chain does. Everyone except the ones who pay. Look around you in the world, everywhere you can see almost every kind of work sub-contracted to the extent you can't really see who's working for whom. Two people you can distinguish though, the one at the first end, and the one at the last. So the ad-companies are the bad ones? I don't care, as long as Neowin is the one who hired them in the first place and makes a profit as well.

 

Or will Neowin pay me back?

[Brandon H Supervisor]

so it's all Neowin's fault?

 

I'm sorry I just don't see your logic.

[Draconian Guppy]

 lol wut?! I'm pretty sure this is PICNIC.

[Louisifer]

2 hours ago, VSG said:

I activated a lock with my carrier so something like this can't happen again.

You blame Neowin but your carrier allows things to add themselves to your bill without your consent.  that's f'd up.

[Steven P. Administrators]

2 hours ago, VSG said:

Guys, I've had my plenty share of problems with your mobile site. Pop-ups that didn't go away and other stuff. But what happened this morning really is a new low for Neowin.

I opened a link on my cell phone and while I was reading the first lines of the article about a Twitter outage on Neowin on my iPhone, a white pop-up appeared that didn't have any text or a way to close it. So I skipped back and reopened the website.

 

A few minutes later I got an SMS that said I had purchased a subscription service for 4,99 Euros a week! A few hours later that 5 Euros were billed to my phone number. It seems this is a known scam by some ad-scammers. They reside outside the EU or any other country with an extradition agreement so you can't get a hold on them.

 

I've spent hours today undoing everything they have done to cancel that subscription. If I will get my 5 Euros back, I don't know yet, but it is unlikely.

So who's to blame?

 

Well, I blame you guys at Neowin - at least to an extent. It is nothing new that whatever ad-partner you have it's the worst of the worst. And all you do is lean back and say "hey, it's not us, it's our ad-partners". Well guess what, you live off the ads, the ad-companies are scammers so you're part of the system.

 

I activated a lock with my carrier so something like this can't happen again.

But unless Neowin changes their ad-policy, I'm putting a lock on you, too. No matter how interesting the articles are, the way you do business is simply … meh.

 

VSG

First of all I want to apologize that this happened to you, I am currently talking with our ad provider and they have narrowed it down to a service particular ad provider in rotation that we use. I have asked them to disable mobile ads until they can properly filter and sort out these redirect ads, but I do want to make it clear that it isn't only Neowin suffering from these bad ads, according to my rep they have affected the entire network, and they also aren't only targeting tech sites like Neowin, but others too.

 

I have been reporting it, and due to this I have instructed mobile ads get disabled (they have to do it, I can't because the mobile ads are delivered through the same tag as desktop, which isn't delivering bad ads) I was going to hold out for their investigation, but it is becoming clearer that we can't allow this sort of thing to go on.

 

I will update this post with their response when I hear it.

 

Edited for clarity that the service is not Neowin's, but a service the ad provider uses to deliver ads.

[Steven P. Administrators]

I have had a multi-pronged response, but the one we're looking for is this 

 

Quote

They have made enhancements to the GPT tags which will auto block redirects for most recent browsers. We will have to have our team QA this solution to make sure this is working properly.

Due to your report @VSG it was escalated at Google (which is a third party advertiser behind our primary one) which resulted in the above solution. I will be keeping an eye on if this actually works, one of my reporters keeps experiencing this problem so he might be able to confirm either way if this is actually working.

 

Thanks for the report, only then can we actually do something to avoid these sorts of problems, so  and again, sorry this happened to you,

[VSG]

15 hours ago, Brandon H said:

so it's all Neowin's fault?

I didn't say "it's all Neowin's fault". I did say and keep saying there have to be checks in place. One has to control the content on the website and that content includes ads as much has anything else.

 

 

15 hours ago, Draconian Guppy said:

I'm pretty sure this is PICNIC.

I'm not sure what you mean with "PICNIC" but I can assure you this is very real and it did happen. I can show you my carrier-bill.

 

 

15 hours ago, Louisifer said:

You blame Neowin but your carrier allows things to add themselves to your bill without your consent.  that's f'd up.

This scam happens as part of a "third-party-service". Anyone remember the ringtones you could buy years ago for your phone? Your carrier-bill was charged for that and this is how it works. This third-party-billing-services enable you to pay for your shopping for example - you give your phone number and they bill it to your carrier, who passes on the bill.

In theory this is nice, although I never used it and never will. The problem is: this is turned on by default on all carriers here in Germany. You have to manually opt out if you don't want to use. I personally had never heard of this before, so I didn't know I have to opt out. As millions of customers haven't either, I assume.

 

 

14 hours ago, Steven P. said:

First of all I want to apologize that this happened to you, I am currently talking with our ad provider and they have narrowed it down to a service particular ad provider in rotation that we use.

Thank you. And I seriously mean that.

 

 

4 hours ago, Steven P. said:

I have had a multi-pronged response, but the one we're looking for is this 

 

Due to your report @VSG it was escalated at Google (which is a third party advertiser behind our primary one) which resulted in the above solution. I will be keeping an eye on if this actually works, one of my reporters keeps experiencing this problem so he might be able to confirm either way if this is actually working.

 

Thanks for the report, only then can we actually do something to avoid these sorts of problems, so  and again, sorry this happened to you,

Thanks, good to hear that progress is being made.

Those scammers need to be stopped. Whatever contract the scammer claims you have affirmed, it is illegal in the end. The problem is: No one ever takes those cases to court. Because the amount in controversy is too low, no on will ever bring this before a judge.

The amount of time and money I had to put into this since yesterday, it's unbelievable.

 

Thank you again that you took care of it. I can only hope it works.

[Draconian Guppy]

3 hours ago, VSG said:

 

I'm not sure what you mean with "PICNIC" but I can assure you this is very real and it did happen. I can show you my carrier-bill.

 

 

Thank you again that you took care of it. I can only hope it works.

Problem is in chair not computer, but ignore my comment seeing as it  was a real issue, what's  f'd is your telecom charging you that way.