Czech premium SMS subscriptions scammed members of parliament

A premium SMS scam is still active in Czechia, quietly draining money from thousands of subscribers for years. A check of phone numbers found that members of parliament were among the victims too: at least 22 MPs were paying 99 crowns a week for a Premium SMS service, even though almost none of them knew such a subscription existed.

MPs had no idea about the subscription

“The Rancio service? I never had that, I don’t even know what it is,” said MP Tomáš Helebrant (ANO), taken aback. His fellow party member Jan Richter (ANO) also denied having the subscription: “No, I never had anything like that.” SPD MP Miroslav Ševčík gave a similar response: “I honestly have no idea what that is.”

Jan Síla (SPD) tried to work out how this could even happen: “How could this happen? I have no idea what kind of scam this is.” Renata Vesecká (Motoristé), unlike her colleagues, did find the subscription on her own number and cancelled it immediately: “It was a mistake — I must have just tapped something on my phone. As soon as I noticed it, I switched it off straight away”, she said, adding that she had never knowingly signed up for any such service.

Even a former minister's phone was being charged

Asked about the subscription, Ivan Adamec (ODS) recalled a story involving his wife: “I really don’t know, that happened to my wife.” However, the check showed that the 99-crown weekly charge had actually been activated on his own number.

Former Health Minister Vlastimil Válek (TOP 09) reacted with no less surprise: “Three years ago I was a minister, and this phone was checked by the BIS security service and pretty much everyone else who could check it. It was a work phone, so I wasn’t the one paying the bills. This is absolutely astonishing information”, he said.

The point of approaching the MPs was not to ridicule them, but to draw lawmakers’ attention to the problem and push them toward changes that would protect people from this kind of unwanted charge. Some of the MPs interviewed did in fact offer to help.

How the SMS scheme works

Premium SMS itself is not a scam: it is a payment tool that lets people pay for third-party services through their mobile operator. The problem arises when someone accidentally activates a recurring subscription, believing they are confirming something else entirely.

It usually starts online: a user wants to download a document, use some service or scan a QR code. The website asks for a phone number, after which an SMS arrives — confirming that message without reading it carefully can amount to agreeing to a paid subscription.

The charge then repeats and shows up in the itemised mobile bill. 99 crowns a week is easy to miss among the other lines on the bill, but with regular deductions it adds up to more than five thousand crowns a year.

This subscription-based monetisation model is used, among others, by services such as Soundies, Soundees Music, Playtheque, Appland, Gamistream and Carefizz — some look like music or video portals, others like gaming sites or app catalogues. What they have in common is that access is paid for not as a one-off, but through a regularly charged subscription, and it is not always clear exactly what the person is paying for.

How to protect yourself from these charges

Experts advise regularly checking the itemised bill with your operator, not entering your phone number without thinking — especially on sites that require it to download a file, enter a contest, register or get a QR code — and reading SMS messages carefully before confirming them.

If you discover an unfamiliar subscription, you should immediately file a complaint with its provider and find out when and how it was activated. You can also ask your operator to block Premium SMS and payments to third-party services, although such a block may also disable some legitimate services — such as paying for parking.

If the service provider or operator fails to resolve the issue, it is worth contacting the Czech Telecommunication Office (ČTÚ), which handles disputes related to Premium SMS and other paid services in electronic communications.

Read also: Mobile operators in Czechia: which one to choose in 2026

Source: novinky.cz