RUNA TV - FRANK RIGAL THIS IS A WEB BASED HOROSCOPE SERVICE WHICH ATTRACTS USERS FROM POP UP ADVERTS LONDON ENGLAND AND NORWAY INTERNET
This is a web based horoscope service, which attracts users from pop up adverts. You are asked to enter your mobile telephone number in order to get a 'free' text message, which gives you a code. There is no metnion of cost at this point. If you enter this code into your pc/laptop and then click on any of the headings you are sent another text message that costs 1.50. The cost is then billed to your mobile phone. The cut is 3 way between Runa TV, Sony Ericsson, who act as the payment platform and your mobile phone service provider.
The information supplied by this service is nothing short of rip off as it could easily be obtained anywhere on the internet free of charge and in any case is simply a meaningless collection of words - see example below.
Who are you really? Enter your date of birth and see what makes you unique and what you should improve.
Answer:
You are Cancer, with the moon in Scorpio. Your Chinese sign and element are buffalo and earth.
You are totally independent, amazingly sociable. You are also very smart, exciting, calm and relaxed, very empathic, loyal, practical, determined, patient, sexy.
You succeed best when you are idealist, open to your intuition, daring, committed.
Would you want to pay 1.50 for this? However the worst thing is that if you inadvertently click on any heading on the website you get another identical text message and are charged again. Ok this may not seem like a big time scam but imagine what could happen if a child/teenager repeatedly clicked. The messages regarding costs are so small as to be invisible - check it out.
Roz
Tadley
United Kingdom
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Frank Rigal
Oslo,Europe,
Norway
A LOT OF NERVE
#2REBUTTAL Owner of company
Tue, October 23, 2007
The report posted on your website indicates that:
1. Runa.tv uses pop up adverts. Wrong, we only market through Google ads
2. "You are asked to enter your mobile telephone number in order to get a 'free' text message, which gives you a code. There is no metnion of cost at this point. ". Judge yourself on www.runa.tv. This is the text from this page:
Runa does a full evaluation based on your date and exact time of birth, all elements in your star map and your Chinese sign and element. The daily horoscope also includes an analysis of your numerology and your biorhythms. By clicking on "Search" now, you will first receive an sms with a user code from 84212 which gives access to our pay-per-search services. The code is free but all services (Love, Personality, Horoscope) cost 150 p per search.
Once you have entered your dates of birth and your mobile phone number you get a new page with the following text (you have still not been charged anything at this point):
Your searches will be invoiced through your phone bill or pre-paid card and you will receive an sms confirmation after each search you do. All services in Runa.tv (Love test, Personality test, Horoscope) cost 150 p per search.
If you confirm by clicking search then you receive the resulting analysis, and a confirmation by phone saying "thank you for your search: 150 p. Your sign is etc..."
That is two price informations before ordering and one after each single buy.
By the way, it spells mention, not metnion.
3. "The information supplied by this service is nothing short of rip off as it could easily be obtained anywhere on the internet free of charge and in any case is simply a meaningless collection of words - see example below."
The meaningless collection of words is an exact description of the users personality, based on her/his date and exact time of birth, all elements in the star map and the Chinese sign and element. For those knowing something about astrology we use our own ephemeridic software, calculate all the aspects except ascendent and combine with chinese sign and element.
You can also ask an astrologer to validate our results.
If you do not believe in astrology, just explain us why you tried our service and don't comment on what you don't have a clue about. I don't know what you do in life but I know what you would think about somebody without a clue about your job who still would say your work is crap.
4. "However the worst thing is that if you inadvertently click on any heading on the website you get another identical text message and are charged again."
Wrong again! How many lies does it take to falsely accuse someone? Ever heard about "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour" (Exodus 20:16)?
It is impossible to get charged again by "inadvertently clicking on any heading on the website". Best case you will get the search page again and will have to click search again. And no, by then you will not get a new user code but get billed for a new search. We deliver 3 different kinds of analyses and users often want to test several different people, so we don't send them a new code and ask them to re-enter it for each search they do. Still, we send them an sms confirmation for each search.
For your information, our services have been up for almost three years, and not a single consumer defense organisation has ever received a single complain against us.
We receive on average 1 mail from an unsatisfied customer for every 10 000 customers. 90% of these 4 to 5 mails a year are because the user had not bothered to read the only four lines of text on our pages, which clearly specify our conditions, on all our pages, right in the the middle of the page, in BOLD TEXT. Is it surprising that this happens in 0,01% of the cases? No, and it does not mean either that they were ripped off. IT JUST MEANS THEY DID NOT READ THE BOLD PRINT.