How to Delete “Congratulations You Won” on iPhone

93

While browsing online with your iPhone, have you been “bombarded” with advertising pages that say “Congratulations, you have won”? Alas, you’re not alone: this type of advertising, so invasive and annoying, is quite common. In fact, there are many users of the Apple smartphone who find themselves fighting with it every day. And unfortunately it doesn’t end there!

In some cases, in fact, the display of the fateful message is accompanied by the activation of subscription services that involve unwanted disbursements and affect phone credit on a monthly or even weekly basis. Terrible, isn’t it? I agree, but fortunately there are settings that can be activated on your smartphone or that can be requested from your telephone operator that allow you to reduce the annoyances related to invasive advertising.

Do you want to know what I’m referring to and, more specifically, how to delete “Congratulations you won on iPhone”? Then don’t waste any more time: carve out a few minutes for yourself, read the instructions I’m about to give you and try to put them into practice. You will see, at the end of the consultation of this guide of mine you will have managed to get rid of the most invasive advertisements and unwanted subscriptions active on your line. Good luck with everything!

Block pop-ups

The first way to try to get rid of “Congratulations you won” on iPhone is to go and turn on the pop-up blocker in Safari. By default it should already be on, but I still recommend that you check it out and if not, enable it, of course.

Pop-ups, in case you didn’t know, are the pop-up windows that are often used on the web to show “cheating” advertisements, while Safari is the default browser of iOS, the iPhone’s operating system.

Now that you’re clear, let’s take action. To turn on the pop-up blocker in Safari, go to the home screen and/or the iOS App Library and tap on the Settings icon (the one in the shape of a gear wheel).

On the screen now visible, select the Safari item and, if it is not already active, move the toggle relating to the Block pop-up windows function that you find by scrolling down to ON.

From now on, the display of pop-up ads in Safari should be canceled, or at least drastically reduced.

If, unfortunately, you have already stumbled upon several pop-up pages and do not know how to close them, tap on the icon with the two squares located in the lower right corner of the Safari window, locate the pages to close and press the (x) key located on their thumbnails. Alternatively, swipe the thumbnails and move them to the left with your finger.

If Safari is blocked and won’t allow you to close ad pages, force close the browser completely using the iOS switcher with all apps open. To do this, if you’re using an iPhone with Face ID, swipe up from the bottom of the screen, to the center, and then move your finger to the right or true left, while if you’re using an iPhone with Touch ID, press the Home button quickly twice in a row. After that, in all cases, locate Safari and move its window upwards, so that it disappears.

Once you close Safari, you should be able to launch Safari again and close the advertising pages as explained above.

In case you used to use a browser other than Safari to browse the Internet from your iPhone, know that almost all of the most popular Internet browsing apps available for iOS integrate a function to block pop-ups and thanks to which it becomes possible to eliminate “Congratulations you have won” on iPhone. In most cases, the aforementioned functionality can be activated by acting directly on the settings of the reference app.

To give a concrete example, if you are used to surfing the Web from your iPhone with Google Chrome, to enable the pop-up blocker tap on the (…) button at the bottom right of the app screen, select the item Settings from the menu that opens, choose the wording Content settings, then the Pop-up blocker and turn the switch that you find in the following screen to ON.

If, on the other hand, you generally use Firefox, you have to press the (≡) button at the bottom right of the main browser screen, then choose the Settings item from the menu that appears and turn the switch next to the words Block pop-up windows to ON.

Turn off paid subscriptions

After viewing the “Congratulations, you’ve won” page on your iPhone, have you activated a paid subscription? Don’t panic, it’s something that can happen, but there’s a solution to that too.

First, go to the home screen and/or iOS/iPadOS App Library and select the Messages app icon (the one with the white speech bubble on a green background), then check all the SMS you have recently received: among them there should also be a confirmation message regarding the activation of the subscription.

Open, therefore, the message in question and inside it you should find the necessary instructions to deactivate the subscription: generally all you have to do is send an SMS with the word NO or STOP to a number indicated in the body of the SMS, or to call a phone number and follow the voice guide to request the deactivation of the value-added service, technically called VAS.

Once you’ve followed the instructions to deactivate the subscription that was activated on your line, make sure you receive a confirmation SMS that you have cancelled your VAS. If you don’t receive a confirmation text message, try it again.

After completing the above steps, contact your telephone operator to request the cancellation and, if desired, the preventive blocking of all value-added services on your line. Below you will find all the steps you need to take, operator by operator.

TIM

If your telephone operator is TIM, the indications you must follow to delete “Congratulations you have won” on iPhone by going to deactivate paid services are as follows.

• 119 – contact 119 and ask an operator to deactivate all active VASs on your line and preemptively block the activation of new similar services in the future. For more details, you can consult my specific guide on how to talk to a TIM operator.
• SMS – send an SMS to 119 with a claim for unsolicited VAS services. This will cancel all active subscription services on your line and prevent them from being activated in the future.

Vodafone

Is your carrier Vodafone? Then the indications that you must follow to request the deactivation of VAS on the SIM in your iPhone are as follows.

• 190 – if you are a Vodafone customer, you can call 190 and get in touch with an operator to ask for the cancellation of all active VASs on your line and block the activation of similar services in the future.
• My Vodafone App — by logging into the My Vodafone app with your account, pressing the Menu button at the bottom right, tapping on the My Active Offers item on the screen shown and then the Digital Services screen, you can select the reference service and ask for its deactivation from there.
• Do-it-yourself area — you can also deactivate paid services by accessing the Do-it-yourself area of the Vodafone website with your data, selecting the Active offers menu at the top, expanding the Digital Services section, pressing the Manage button attached to it and intervening from the following screen.

WINDTRE

Is your operator WINDTRE? Then follow the instructions below to request the deactivation of paid services on your account.

• 159 — if you are a WINDTRE customer, you can call the number 159 and get in touch with an operator to ask for the cancellation of all active VASs on your account and block the activation of similar services in the future.

iliad

Is there an iliad SIM card in your iPhone and would you like to understand how to intervene in this case for surcharge services? Then follow the instructions below. It’s child’s play, fear not.

• 177 — If you are an iliad customer, you can contact 177, ask to speak to an operator and formulate your request for the deactivation of VASs (with related future blocking for services of this type).
• Online personal area — you can also deactivate paid services with iliad through the personal area of the manager’s website, by logging in with your account, by clicking on the button (≡) at the top left, by clicking on the My options link in the Profile section of the menu that opens on the side on the left, by clicking on the Details button located next to the wording Blocking toll numbers and intervening from the page that opens

Refunding unwanted subscriptions

If you have discovered that you have had active VASs on your line for less than 7 days, you can contact your operator and ask for a refund of what you spent. Some operators allow you to ask for a refund a few days after the activation of the subscriptions. For more information on this, read my guide on how to deactivate subscriptions.

Please note, however, that it is recommended that you submit your refund request at the same time as your VAS deactivation request. In some cases, in fact, operators require that subscription services are still active in order to be able to verify their activation times (and therefore the amount of reimbursement that the user is entitled to).