This simple text will crash any iPhone, here’s how to recover

With every new iOS build there seems to be a way to crash it, breach it or do something else malicious with it.

This time, for iOS 10 and all its iterations, iPhone users need to be wary about a couple of simple text messages that are going around. If you receive either, your phone will freeze and become unresponsive, even if you don’t open the text.

The first is the simplest, it consists of a number and a couple of emojis and crashes any iPhone running iOS 10 to 10.1.1.

The second is a little more complicated, but works on any iOS 10 device – tested up to 10.2.1. What’s worse, this one also works even when the phone is locked.

There really isn’t any way to stop the texts coming through, bar pre-emptively deleting any so-called friends you might suspect of sending one. But you can do a couple of things after to stop your phone continually crashing.

The first, simple text, as revealed by EverythingApplePro in an in-depth YouTube video, is made up of a white flag, a zero and a rainbow emoji. There is also a hidden VS16 character that tells the two emojis to combine to make a rainbow flag. Unfortunately, iOS 10 cannot handle the request and crashes the phone instead.

Luckily, your phone will restart after a while but you should still delete the message thread that contains the malicious text. If you can’t get into the Messages app to do so, here are the steps to help:

• Launch Safari on your phone
• Go to vincedes3.com/save.html
• This will bring up a dialogue box saying “Open this page in Messages”
• Click “Open” and it will place the message in your Messages app
• Delete the malicious text thread and the Vincedes text too

The second text is a bit more destructive because it works on all versions of iOS 10 to date. It can also continue to crash your device. It requires a longer process to create the text, downloadable from a link we won’t share here, so hopefully will deter idiot pranksters. You should be able to follow the steps above in that case too, after your phone has restarted.

Alternatively, you can ask Siri to send a message to yourself, which will create a new message and therefore stop your iPhone from promoting the malicious one to the top. Hopefully, you’ll then be able to go back into Messages to delete it.

EverythingApplePro explains both texts in the video below…

The Morning After: Wednesday, January 18 2017

It’s Wednesday morning and Raspberry Pi has made a super-powered PC-on-a-stick, the state of AAA cloud gaming and a look at the Army’s prototype hoverbike. Grab your coffee. We’ll wait.

The next Raspberry Pi is aimed at advanced users and manufacturers.Raspberry Pi gives its PC-on-a-stick a big speed boost

Raspberry Pi has taken its latest computing board and squished it onto the stick-sized Compute Module 3, giving it about ten times the power of the original Compute Module. The idea is to “provide the ‘team in a garage’ with easy access to the same technology as the big guys.” As such, manufacturers can add it into a dumb device to make it smart, since it can single-handedly do processing, memory and routeing chores. At the same time, it should be relatively easy to program for anyone with some Pi experience.

Stop us if you’ve heard this one beforeWhy LiquidSky thinks the time is right for cloud gaming

Yes, some have tried to do AAA game streaming before, but LiquidSky CEO Ian McLoughlin says his company will be the first to do it right. As he tells Jessica Conditt, advanced technology that runs virtual PCs on cloud servers combined with a business model that allows for free access will make this different from OnLive, Gaikai or GeForce Now. After two years of testing, LiquidSky will open to the public in late February — we hope it’s ready.

No pardon for SnowdenObama commutes most of Chelsea Manning’s sentence

In a slew of commutations just hours before leaving office, President Obama commuted the sentences of 273 people. That included former Army analyst Chelsea Manning, who leaked files to Wikileaks in 2010 that included video of a US helicopter attack in Baghdad that killed two journalists. General James Cartwright received a pardon, as he was facing up to 5 years in prison for leaking details of the Stuxnet malware that sabotaged Iran’s nuclear program.

One prominent name was missing, however, as Edward Snowden did not receive a pardon. Obama had previously said the PRISM leaker would have to return and face the charges, and according to the White House, he never filed paperwork seeking clemency.

That’s a big droneCheck out a demo of the Army’s hoverbike prototype

This former Kickstarter project is still moving along, as the DoD hosted a demo of the “hoverbike” on January 10th. Officially dubbed the JTARV, it’s a rectangular quadcopter intended for carrying supplies to battlefield positions quickly and autonomously.

Don’t let its minuscule footprint fool you.Zotac’s tiny gaming PC packs VR-capable power

The Zbox Magnus EN1070K is deceptively powerful, thanks to a new i5 Kaby Lake CPU from Intel and NVIDIA GTX 1070 GPU shoved inside its ultra-compact case. That makes for a gaming PC powerful enough to run a detailed virtual reality environment, and still fit inside your backpack. The only thing missing now is a price or a release date. (It won’t be cheap.)

Laser Developed Atmospheric LensHow an ‘Atmospheric Lens’ could change the battlefield of the future

Ready to discuss future-weapons? An idea from BAE envisions high-flying aircraft that use lasers to alter the Earth’s atmosphere, creating a lens. That effect could be enough to protect from other laser attacks, interfere with enemy communications or act as a magnifying glass to aid recon.

Nexus-like Android Wear watches are on their wayLG’s Watch Sport and Watch Style are due alongside Android Wear 2.0 in February.

For months, rumors have circulated of Google planning a pair of flagship smartwatches — not Google-designed, but certainly intended as reference models like Nexus phones used to be. But what will they be like? Well, a leak suggests they’ll be LG-made… And look something like this.

But wait, there’s more…

• Jerry Seinfeld is going to Netflix, and he’s bringing ‘Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee’
• Mark Zuckerberg testifies in Oculus VR trial
• Autopilot update rolls out to all Teslas with HW2 hardware
• TV this week: ‘Voltron’ on Netflix, ‘Flame in the Flood’ on PS4 and ‘Hunted’ on CBS
• Gravity wave ripples across Venus’ hellish atmosphere
• Mastercard built a mobile marketplace for farmers in East Africa

Google mobile saves searches if your connection drops

It may be 2017, but there are still lots of areas where cellular data doesn’t reach. Like underground on the subway or in the middle of a rural lake, for instance. Google wants to make sure that lack of coverage doesn’t hurt your curiosity, though. A new update to the Google app on Android will save your search for when a data connection reappears.

“With this change, search results are saved as soon as they are retrieved, even if you lose connection afterwards or go into airplane mode,” a post on The Keyword blog says. If you’re worried about this using extra data or affecting battery life, Google says those fears are unfounded and that power drain won’t be an issue. Same goes for data as the search results use the company’s streamlined approach to delivery.

It’s another move by the tech juggernaut to make mobile search just a little more convenient, but, for now at least, the feature is exclusive to Google’s mobile OS.

Source: Google Play, The Keyword

Google explains how it spots malicious Android apps

Android’s Verify Apps feature performs malware scans on newly downloaded applications to make sure they’re safe. But since some malicious apps can prevent the feature from working, the company had to find an alternative way to figure out if a phone stopped using Verify because you no longer use it or if it’s due to malware lurking in your device. In a blog post on Android Developers, Google explains how it detects if a particular application is harmful even with the absence of Verify’s verdict. “To understand this problem more deeply,” the post reads, “the Android Security team correlates app install attempts and Dead or Insecure (DOI) devices.” To note, the team marks devices that stopped checking up with Verify as DOI and those that continue to use the feature as “retained.”

The security team compute for the app’s retention rate, or the “percentage of all retained devices that downloaded [it] in one day” using the formula below wherein:

N = Number of devices that downloaded the app.
x = Number of retained devices that downloaded the app.
p = Probability of a device downloading any app will be retained.
Z = Represents the DOI score.

If Z or the DOI score falls below -3.7, it means a large number of phones or tablets stopped checking with Verify the moment they installed the app. Google then inspects it more closely to determine if it’s truly harmful before removing existing installs and preventing future downloads. The company says this method allowed the Security team to find a lot of apps loaded with the Hummingbad, Ghost Push and Gooligan malware in the past. Those applications would’ve slipped by unnoticed if they didn’t employ this technique.

Source: Google

New Ford Mustang offers 12-inch all-digital display, smartphone unlocking

Ford has just unveiled the brand new 2018 Mustang, the latest version of world’s best selling sports coupe. While it may have upgrades under the bonnet and in the overall build for improved performance, it’s inside where Ford has really gone all out on tech.

• Ford Mustang GT Convertible review: Big, brutal, and now British

Ford has followed in Audi’s footsteps by throwing out the analogue instrument cluster and replacing it with a new 12-inch LCD screen. The screen can display information in one of three different modes: normal, sport or track and a new MyMode function will let you save personal driving preferences including steering and suspension settings.

A whole host of Ford driving aids are available for the new Mustang too, including pre-collision assist with pedestrian detection, distance alert, lane-departure warning and a driver alert system.

You’ll now be able to use your smartphone to lock, unlock and locate your car if you lose it in a car park using the FordPass app with Ford Sync Connect. Finally, even the engine note can be adjusted thanks to a new, optional active valve exhaust system.

But of course, you’ll want to buy a Mustang for its performance. Ford has fitted new shock absorbers for improved control and a new MagneRide option promises to optimise ride and handling in all situations.

Under the hood remains the 2.3-litre EcoBoost engine as standard, but for those who want more power, Ford will offer a 5-litre V8 on the Mustang GT, which has been reworked to offer even more power than before. A new 10-speed automatic gearbox is available both models claims to provide improved responsiveness and performance.

The bodywork has had a bit of a makeover too, particularly the front end which now looks a lot leaner with improved aerodynamics. The new Ford Mustang will be available with 12 different alloy wheel choices and a wide range of colours including new orange fury. The new Ford Mustang will go on sale in the US this fall, with prices yet to be announced.

Valve hints at Half-Life 3, Portal 3 or Half-Life VR game, which would you prefer?

Valve is working on a new single-player game set in the Half-Life or Portal universes.

During a questions and answer session on Reddit, Valve’s founder, Gabe Newell, gave several clues as to what that might be.

When asked if Valve was working on “any fully-fledged single-player games”, he responded “yes”. He was also asked if there was “any chance of a new IP that takes place in the Half-Life/Portal universe”, a question that also resulted with a positive response. “Yep,” he replied.

Lastly, Newell was asked if Valve is interested in “making a full game experience for the Vive”, in reference to the VR headset it created in partnership with HTC. His reply was a little longer this time: “Yes. We think VR is pretty important as a tool for interesting games,” he wrote.

Added together, you could be forgiven for thinking that a Half-Life or Portal universe game was coming to the HTC Vive in the not too distant future. Alternatively, take VR out of the question and you might see it as confirmation that a Portal 3 or, dare we say it, Half-Life 3 are in the works.

We’ve been hoping for the latter for many years, with several reports each year claiming that it is coming. Back in 2014, for example, a Steam employee even said that it was common knowledge that Half-Life 3 was being worked on. But we’ve still not seen hide nor hair of it.

To be honest, we’d be more than happy with Portal 3.

Logitech Circle review: The portable home security camera

The Logitech Circle camera (or Logi Circle if you’re on board with the new branding) is a powerful little home security cam with plenty of strings to its bow.

This smart home camera is meant for more than simple security: it’s a cloud-based Wi-Fi camera with a rechargeable battery that features two-way communication, a capable night vision mode, motion detection alerts and more. Add to that the ability to connect to the camera remotely using the app and you’ll discover a world of possibilities.

Smart connected cameras are not new – there’s the Nest Cam, Withings Home, Canary all-in-one and more – so what can the Logitech Circle offer that the others don’t?

Battery powered and wireless home security from a web-connected camera

• 1600mAh rechargeable lithium battery
• 802.11 b/g/n 2.4GHz / 5.0GHz Wi-Fi connectivity
• Charging ring with 10ft USB cable

The Logitech Circle stands out as offering superb home security video recording and monitoring in a compact, sleekly designed package.

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The bonus of the Circle over and above its competition is that it comes with a 1600mAh rechargeable battery – meaning it’s portable and multi-functional. During the day it could act as a security camera to monitor your home, while at night it could just as easily operate as a baby monitor in your child’s bedroom.

In standard mode (with continuous streaming) we found we would get between two to three hours of life out of the camera before it needed to be docked on the charging ring again. You’ll get less at night because night vision is slightly more taxing.

You can however, activate “battery saving mode” which does what it says on the tin. Then you’re looking at getting more like half a day’s worth of juice out of the camera. Battery saving mode does mean the camera is switched to “idle” during that time, which means that it’s not recording unless it detects movement or you have the app open and are actively streaming.

The charging ring is another highlight of the design: thin and discrete, it’s easy enough to tuck out of sight. The charging cable too is flat and easily concealed so there’s no need to worry about unsightly wires making a mess of the place.

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Or, for a more permanent fitting, you can opt to use the included screws and wall plugs or 3M stickers for a more permanent solution. It’s also possible to mount the camera upside down on the ceiling to get a clear view of a room if you so choose. There’s a supplied magnetic wall mount which makes placing and removing the camera a breeze.

The Logitech Circle camera connects to your home Wi-Fi with ease and sends recorded footage to Logi’s secure cloud servers. You then use the Circle appon your phone to access recordings remotely – you don’t need to be in the house to see what’s going on or to review snippets, it’s all accessible via the app or the web interface with the right username and password.

Quality-wise live-streaming is at Full HD (1920 x 1080) and 24-hour playback of the footage is available once it’s recorded. There’s no requirement for local storage space as all the footage is stored securely in the cloud, meaning you don’t have to worry about backing up or deleting old recordings. Depending on what you’re planning to do, this could be a good or bad thing, but in our view it makes it easy to manage and that’s exactly what you need from any smart device.

Two-way communication; home when you’re away from home

• Built-in speaker and mic
• AES 256-bit dual layer encryption

One of the stand-out features of the Circle is how easy it makes communication with home when out and about. Whether at work in the office or down the local shops the system allows seamless and straightforward communication with the home environment – whether you need to tell off the dog or keep an eye on the kids.

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Two-way communication in this format isn’t going to replace Facetime or other video conferencing – as the video is only one-way using the Circle – but it has its place and audio can be recorded.

The recording quality is surprisingly good too. In a busy home environment, we could easily hear the chatter of family members throughout the day. Turning the mic sensitivity up means you can even hear sounds and voices from other rooms in the house. From a home security point of view, it would be easy to monitor for unwanted activity and record what was being said or done.

Live 1080p HD video streaming with a wide-angle view

• 360, 720 and 1080p video capture
• 135° wide-angle lens
• Night-vision mode up to 15 feet

We were pleasantly surprised by the footage the Logitech Circle captured. Boasting a 135-degree wide-angle lens, this security camera is capable of seeing far more of the room than you’d expect.

The Circle also packs an 8x digital zoom – but you’ll soon find the quality degrading if you zoom in too far. Realistically, in a reasonably sized room you’ll be able to see most of the features from wall-to-wall, but you won’t be zooming in to see a pin dropped on the floor or study the pores on a burglar’s nose.

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Footage can be streamed at 1080p. There’s no mention of how much bandwidth this uses, but we imagine it will be a fair amount with constant video being captured all day long. You’ll need to consider this before purchasing if you have any fair usage policy on your home broadband or if you live in a rural area that hasn’t yet got access to superfast broadband speeds.

In the evening, the camera automatically engages night-vision mode when the light levels drop. It’s capable of seeing up to 15-feet away in the pitch black of night. We were surprised and impressed by the quality of footage it recorded, even in the darkest of settings.

In standard mode, the Circle camera captures constant footage with regular alerts to the app. You’ll be notified of detected movement and if you dive into the app you can scroll back through the events to filter between detected activity, high activity and days.

With a Logitech Circle Safe subscription you’ll also be able to take advantage of person detection alerts. These offer more significant notifications than just the presence of change of light or the movement of a cat crossing the room. Since its launch, Logi has pushed out regular firmware updates, alongside frequent app improvements to include new features and improve user-experience.

Intelligent alerts, smart video editing and clip sharing

• Timelapse day brief
• Smart events and alerts
• New person detection

There are potentially several different reasons for owning a Circle camera. You might want one to keep track of what the family are up to when you’re not there or to have a feeling of security for your worldly possessions while you’re away.

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Whatever your needs, the Circle camera is there to help. Constant live streaming means you can always access footage of your home – as long as you have a working internet connection and power to the camera (if there’s a power cut, there’s still the rechargeable battery to keep it going). But from a security stand-point you’re hardly going to want to keep one eye on the camera footage all day long. That’s where the intelligent alerts come in.

With alerts turned on, you’ll be notified of movement and activity that’s in view of the camera. We did find this could be overbearing at times. Car lights shining through a window or a change in sunlight would be enough to trigger a notification, meaning we often found ourselves bombarded with alerts that didn’t really warrant any attention.

The addition of person detection alerts therefore is a welcome update to the camera, though whether it alone is enough to warrant the £7.99 per month (or £79.99 a year) subscription cost is up to you to decide. That’s competitive to the likes of Nest.

To alleviate this somewhat, Logi has included a smart location system which means the camera recognises when you’re home based on your phone’s proximity the area based on GPS. You then won’t get notified of movement detected during that period and notifications will only continue when you leave again.

When it comes to reviewing the timeline, the day is split into easily accessible events – with high and low activity bubbles being clickable to view in an instant. You can choose to download and share those snippets too – whether you need to share footage of an unwanted guest with the Police or hilarious footage of children getting up to mischief with your other half.

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This is also coupled with scene intuition, which is capable of learning the patterns of home life so it can determine what should be of interest and what is not. We found this way of reviewing the activity of the day to be useful and logical.

Another great feature of the Circle is the day brief time-lapse functionality. Clicking this button at any point makes the app grab footage for that day and condense it into a 30 second time-lapse video. Good fun, especially on particularly busy days.

Subscription costs and camera extra features

• £0 for 24-hours’ of viewable footage
• £2.99 per month for 14 days’ footage
• £7.99 per month for 31 days’ footage

Out of the box, the Logitech Circle offers 24-hours’ worth of unlimited streaming and downloads, smart events, smart alerts and the superb time-lapse day briefs. This is more than enough for most people and with the ability to get alerts when you’re away from home you can easily keep an eye on the security of your domicile and download recordings where necessary. Nest, conversely, only offers three hours.

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If you wish, you can pay extra for Circle Safe. The basic subscription starts at £2.99 per month and includes the same features as the free version but with 14 days’ worth of footage. Circle Safe Premium is slightly pricier at £7.99 per month but includes 31 days of footage, as well as the person detection alerts, motion zones and other advanced filters and alerts.

The subscription costs might be off-putting for some, but they’re not entirely necessary for most people who will be at home at some point each day.

Verdict

The Logitech Circle certainly has a lot to offer and some stand-out features that make it a worthwhile addition to your home. If you’re looking for a smart home camera that doesn’t require a subscription cost then this is it. If you want footage available for longer then the £2.99 or £7.99 per month fees are reasonable, depending on your needs.

The Circle’s built-in battery and, therefore, ability to go wireless and be easily moved around the home for different uses – as a baby monitor, for example – make this an extremely flexible camera for your home, family and possessions.

Cloud video storage, day brief time lapses and two-way communication make Logi’s smart camera one of the more interesting and useful out there. It’s cheaper than Nest too.

Logitech Circle Camera: Alternatives to consider

Netatmo Welcome

Pocket-lint

• £119

The Netatmo Welcome is one of the best smart home cameras we’ve reviewed with facial recognition being a highlight that impressed us. It is however, let down by lack of cloud backup that the Logitech Circle and other competitors offer, but then it doesn’t come with the subscription costs those cameras do.

Canary All-In-One Home Security

Pocket-lint

• £110

Canary is a strong contender for the smart home camera crown. It lacks facial recognition but we found it offered a strong experience, despite the subscription requirements. On the free plan you can get 12 hours of footage, half that of the Logitech Circle but it boasts some pretty clever features like the ability to track where household members are (i.e. away from home or not) and arm itself accordingly.

Withings Home

• £150

We found the Withings Home to be a lot more than just a smart camera, it’s nearly an all-in-one smart home solution with a camera, video recorder, night light, speaker and more besides. A beautiful design, a wide range of features and functionality and all-round performance should put the Withings Home on your radar.

Nest Cam

Pocket-lint

• £149

Nest Cam is a solid smart camera and has all the features and functionality you’d expect from a high-quality smart home product including great quality HD video capture, night vision mode and cloud back-up. With recent updates it also works with the rest of the Nest ecosystem including the Nest Thermostat. A worthy contender for the smart camera crown.

The US Army successfully flies its hoverbike prototype

The Army has proven that the hoverbike its contractors are developing actually works during a flight demo with the Department of Defense. Dr. William Roper, director of the Strategic Capabilities Office for the Secretary of Defense, watched the large rectangular prototype quadcopter take off at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland on January 10th. The hoverbike began as a Kickstarter project by creator Malloy Aeronautics. Once Malloy secured a contract with the military, it teamed up with defense company Survice Engineering Co. to continue the bike’s development. It has since become a joint project between the Army and the US Marine Corps.

Officially known as Joint Tactical Aerial Resupply Vehicle, or JTARV, the hoverbike could someday be used to carry supplies to soldiers on the field. Tim Vong, associate chief of the Army Research Lab’s Protection Division, said it’s like having “Amazon on the battlefield,” since it’ll allow the military to deliver resupplies in less than 30 minutes.

It’ll take some time before the military deploys JTARV, though. To start with, its developers are looking to make a hybrid propulsion system to give it a longer range (up to 125 miles) than it has today as an electric-powered prototype. Further, they want to increase the payload it can carry to 800 pounds, as well as to load it with an advanced navigation system and mission planning. Vong says they’re looking to “end up with a modular, stable platform that can be used for even more dynamic and challenging missions.”

Source: US Army

BeeLine’s bike computer makes every ride an adventure

Cycling in a city can be stressful, especially if you’re headed somewhere that you’ve never been to before. Most people ride with a specialized cycle computer, or with a smartphone strapped to their handlebars. While useful, both devices can be a distraction on busy, dangerous roads. Instructive turn-by-turn directions also do little to improve your street-level knowledge — the screen becomes a crutch, rather than a tool to help you learn about the various roads, bridges and tunnels around you.

Enter BeeLine, a new type of cycling computer. It works more like a compass than a traditional GPS device, with just an arrow to indicate the direction of your final destination. There are no turn-by-turn instructions — just a general indication of where you need to go. It pairs with your smartphone over Bluetooth and presents information with a coin-sized e-paper display. Before setting off, you’ll set your objective in the app and any places you want to hit along the way. BeeLine will then spring into action, tracking your position with its built-in built-in magnetometer, accelerometer and gyroscope, as well as the GPS on your phone.

The arrow gives you a sense of where to go, but it’s up to your eyes and ears to figure out the exact route. On a chilly Tuesday morning, I pedalled through central London to find the BeeLine team at four mystery locations. Needless to say, it was trickier than I anticipated. The computer would often suggest a hard right, for instance, but I was stuck on a road without a right turn for several miles (or rather, it felt like miles). I had no choice but to barrel down the street and wait for an opportunity to course-correct. Sometimes I would take a seemingly correct turn, only to find the road was a dead-end. Occasionally I felt frustrated, like I was wasting my time and the people around me who clearly knew where they were going.

But there were clear benefits too. I soon stopped staring at the screen and examined the world around me. Cycling in London is hard, especially when you’re surrounded by aggressive or just plain inconsiderate drivers. Using BeeLine meant that I could keep my eyes on the road and avoid nasty collisions. I also loved the glanceable nature of the display. A quick look down and I knew immediately if I was headed in the wrong direction. No looking at street names or wondering why the blue dot in Google Maps had stopped moving. Just a simple arrow and the distance left to travel.

The BeeLine computer comes with a silicone strap that wraps around your bike’s handlebars or stem. The device is water resistant while it’s inside the protective case, but you’ll need to take it out to charge the included 350mAh battery. That shouldn’t happen too often, however, because the team says a single charge will last you roughly four weeks — your own mileage will vary, however, depending on how often and far you ride.

Cycling this way isn’t for everyone. If you’re in a rush, or struggling with a city’s road layout, you’ll probably want specific instructions. No fuss, no time-wasting, just detailed directions. And that’s okay, because BeeLine is aimed at a different crowd. The cyclist who has more time on their hands, or likes to ride for fun at the weekend. It might take you longer, but the process will make you a more educated rider. And once you know a place inside out, you might not need BeeLine at all. Then you’ll be faster than the people stopping at every junction to check their route on Google Maps.

BeeLine started as a Kickstarter project in 2015. The London-based team is now shipping its first units to backers and taking regular orders online. It comes in grey, red and blue, and will set you back £99 (roughly $119).

Ofcom fines EE £2.7 million for overcharging customers

Oh dear. Ofcom has caught another mobile carrier failing in its duty to provide decent customer support. The villain this time is EE, after it overcharged more than 30,000 customers for calling its “150” service line. These subscribers had calling while roaming in the EU — the problem is they were charged £1.20 per minute, rather than EE’s promised 19p per minute rate. That “carelessness” and ‘negligence,” as Ofcom describes it, led to a combined overcharge of £245,700 between July 2014 and 2015. EE is now being fined £2.7 million for the mess, which needs to be paid in 20 working days. Ofcom will then transfer the money to the UK’s Treasury.

Ofcom was notified by TÜV SÜD BABT, an external company that monitors and approves EE’s billing systems, in September 2015. The problem occurred because EE had told its record-keeping partners to remove the UK’s international dialling code (+44) for people who were calling short code numbers, including EE’s own “150” line. The system then mistook the “1” in “150” as an attempt to call the United States — which is why people in EU were charged £1.20, rather than 19 pence per minute. It was, quite clearly, a huge technical mess, and Ofcom blames EE for issuing the command and failing to check it had been implemented properly.

The kicker? According to Ofcom, EE said it couldn’t identify the people it had overcharged — which was untrue — and wanted to give the money it had collected unfairly to charity. Most customers have now been refunded, however EE has been “unable to identify at least 6,905 customers,” who are owed more than £60,000 collectively. The company has made a £62,000 donation to charity, however Ofcom wants the company to make another attempt at tracing and refunding the customers who are out of pocket.

The problem was exasperated when EE made it free to call “150” from inside the European Union in November 2015. The network provider charged another 7,673 customers roughly £2,200 up until January 11, 2016. On this occasion, the company was able to identify the problem and offered affected callers full refunds.

Back in 2014, Ofcom slapped Three with a £250,000 fine for its poor handling of customer complaints. EE was then charged £1 million in 2015 for similar slip-ups. Today’s fine is significantly larger — indicating the scale of the company’s mistakes — and will hopefully act as a deterrent for any business thinking of doing the same. “EE didn’t take enough care to ensure that its customers were billed accurately,” Lindsey Fussell, Ofcom’s Consumer Group Director, said. “This ended up costing customers thousands of pounds, which is completely unacceptable. Any company that breaks Ofcom’s rules should expect similar consequences.”

Source: Ofcom