I’ve been charged for calls to premium rate numbers I don’t recognise – what should I do?

It may be appropriate to first find out which company is behind the payment number on the invoice, as that knowledge can be useful when trying to figure out what has happened. The operator should provide contact details for the service/company that charged on the invoice.

If you have been charged for premium calls that you are not aware of having made, you can dispute the invoice with your operator. The question of whether a premium call has been made or not falls outside our mandate. We can therefore only inform about what applies in a situation where a consumer claims that he or she has not made premium calls that the operator has charged for. By entering into an agreement with a telecom operator, the subscription holder has assumed responsibility for covering all costs associated with telephony from the current subscription, including premium telephony services.

The National Board for Consumer Disputes (ARN) has in several cases taken a position on the issue. In these cases, ARN requested that the operator prove that the charged premium calls had been connected from the consumers’ phone numbers. When the operators could show with printouts from their technical systems that connections had been made, the burden of proof shifted to the consumers, who were required to prove that they had not made the charged calls.

If you want to dispute an invoice because you believe you have not made premium calls, it is good to start by requesting a call specification from the operator. On the call specification, you can see the exact times when the disputed calls were connected.

If you suspect that a minor may have made the charged premium calls, you can read more about minors’ use of premium telephony services and more.