Vas (Value-added-Service) are pay telephone services that are activated thanks to a SMS, often without the customer's complete knowledge. Once activated, simply by visiting a web page or consulting an app with your mobile phone, the Vas consume the credit of the users who receive messages on the weather, horoscope, sports, ringtones, gossip.
Just in recent days, the Milan Financial Police has seized 322 million euros from six companies in an investigation into the Vas. According to investigators, the companies under investigation were able to activate 30 to 40 new users every day. The suspects allegedly defrauded thousands of customers throughout Italy. The accusation, for now of computer fraud, is that the services in question were activated without the customers' knowledge. The seizure decree also concerns Tim. The company, which is not currently under investigation, has seen almost 250 million frozen. Another 70 million were seized from five other companies, including one based in Spain. The investigation follows the one in 2020 which hit Wind, which was not investigated at the time.
How to block unwanted services
The Vas can be blocked. Even if it is not immediate for users to realize that they have stumbled upon a scam, when they realize that they are receiving many suspicious messages on unsolicited topics, such as those indicated above, it is sufficient to contact their telephone operator to ask for the blocking of the service.
By calling your telephone company's call center and speaking to an operator you can ask to check whether there are active services on your number. If there are, just ask to block them. The telephone numbers to contact are these:
119 for Tim
190 for Vodafone
159 for WindTre
177 for Iliad
160 for Poste Mobile
192.193 for Fastweb
According to a 2021 Agcom (Communications Regulatory Authority) resolution, telephone companies should activate a preventative block of services.
(Photo: Pixabay)
