False charges for premium rated SMSs

I've been battling to get a query solved since June this year regarding premium rated SMSs that were billed to my account over a period of five months and which I never sent. The total charge for this came to R4858,18, which was debited from my account. I have never sent premium rated SMSs, in fact I hardly send any SMSs at all.

After going through my itemised billing with a fine toothed comb I discovered that all the premium rated SMSs were sent to a UK number - ********** ********** - which I do not know. There are literally hundreds of SMSs sent to this number from my account over the months of February to July . I have absolutely no record on my phone of any SMSs ever being sent to this number and no one else ever uses my phone.

I find it very strange that when I phoned in to Vodacom in July to query the premium rated SMS bill on my account, no more SMSs were sent to this number. It is equally strange that from 03/10 until 02/11 this year I received a slew of SMSs saying "Failed to send to the ********** 05094”. Clearly further attempts were being made to send messages to this number from my account during this period, though not from my phone itself. I was so worried about this at the time that I actually phoned in to the call centre to ask if there was a possibility that someone had attempted to hack into my phone and was told by the call centre agent that it was nothing and I should just ignore it.

I was so concerned about this issue and getting no answer from Vodacom, I googled the number to try and find out what it is. There is a list of articles online saying that it is a bogus number related to incorrect charges but more than that I cannot seem to figure out as the web pages relating to this are all quite old.

Needless to say I am really not happy about this - it’s not an issue I have ever had before and I am convinced that my account has been hacked or misused in some way.

I have phoned in so many times I have lost count and after much back and forth via email as well, I finally received a response from Vodacom stating that the SMSs were sent from my account and therefore I am liable to pay for them. I have asked Vodacom to supply me with evidence of this but they just keep saying that I am liable. However, Vodacom has offered me a 50% credit for the premium rates SMSs "in good faith" (without stipulating the actual amount), which makes no sense to me. If Vodacom was so certain that I had sent the messages in the first place why would they offer to refund a portion of this? And why is it that when I brought this issue to Vodacom's attention in July the SMSs suddenly stopped being charged to my account?

My contract is due for renewal but I will most certainly not be renewing it with Vodacom as there is clearly something very wrong about this situation and Vodacom is obviously far too big and important to care about a customer like me being falsely charged for a service I have never even used.