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Beware of Cramming on Your Cellphone Bill

nytimes.com

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Re: Beware of Cramming on Your Cellphone Bill

#21

Post by pavel_lishin »

untog wrote: post #16

This is one of the reasons I stayed on a PAYG plan for as long as humanly possible. My burning resentment for my monthly plan has not yet subsided. Amongst the irritation: it costs me to receive text messages. Right now I have an unlimited text plan, but it's a waste of money, since I have Google Voice and text using it. But I also receive spam texts to my main cellphone number- so if I cancelled my text plan I would…

Being charged to receive texts never made sense to me. You're being charged for something you have zero control over - it would be like being charged per piece of mail you receive.

Not to mention, someone who didn't like you could seriously ruin your month just by sending you a couple of text messages a day. There are services that let you do it for free online, aren't there?

Re: Beware of Cramming on Your Cellphone Bill

#22

Post by radog »

I just happened to catch this at random a couple of months ago when I looked at my bill (I normally don't review my bill every month).

I called AT&T and they similarly to others' experience did not give any explanation as to why they permit third parties to initiate subscriptions without any explicit confirmation from users. Of course, I had them put on purchase block and refund my money, but I'm sure for everyone one of me there are 20 people who didn't notice or just happened to not look at their bill - I normally don't either. This is really unbelievable.

Re: Beware of Cramming on Your Cellphone Bill

#23

Post by esrauch »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #21
untog wrote: post #16

This is one of the reasons I stayed on a PAYG plan for as long as humanly possible. My burning resentment for my monthly plan has not yet subsided. Amongst the irritation: it costs me to receive text messages. Right now I have an unlimited text plan, but it's a waste of money, since I have Google Voice and text using it. But I also receive spam texts to my main cellphone number- so if I cancelled my text plan I would…

Being charged to receive texts never made sense to me. You're being charged for something you have zero control over - it would be like being charged per piece of mail you receive. Not to mention, someone who didn't like you could seriously ruin your month just by sending you a couple of text messages a day. There are services that let you do it for free online, aren't there?

You can disable text messaging to your phone entirely, at least on Verizon.

Re: Beware of Cramming on Your Cellphone Bill

#24

Post by ben1040 »

I got one of these texts two nights ago. I was unsure whether to reply with "stop" because I worried it would further legitimize things, but I did it anyway.

I went to a Verizon shop to see if they could look at my records to see if I got charged, and they are in the dark about it until my next bill cycles over in 3 more weeks.

They also told me they don't do chargebacks for these, because it wasn't a Verizon charge. The manager there likened it to a roaming charge billed by another carrier. He had no real answer when I told him that this isn't like a roaming charge at all - I need to actually act by making a call or using data to attract a roaming charge, and I didn't do a thing to get this "premium message."

Re: Beware of Cramming on Your Cellphone Bill

#25

Post by ben1040 »

teilo wrote: post #2

Thank you FluidDjango for posting this. You just saved me money. After reading this article, I realized this just happened to me. I ignored the messages (From "Brain Cool IQ"), thinking that they were spam. Didn't bother reading them. Thankfully I had not yet deleted them. The first message, on Mar 8, advertised the service. Then, on Mar 22, I received three messages in a row. The first advertising the service, the s…

I got the same thing on the night of March 23, three messages from "brain cool IQ." Verizon can't tell me yet if there is a charge incoming or not, because they can't seem to see charges in between bill cycles.

Re: Beware of Cramming on Your Cellphone Bill

#26

Post by nisse72 »

locopati wrote: post #4

It is unbelievable that this is not illegal.

I agree completely. In Sweden "everybody" knows the practice of negative option marketing (or billing) is illegal, and it surprises me after a few minutes of googling that that doesn't seem to be the case in most of US and Canada.

Re: Beware of Cramming on Your Cellphone Bill

#27

Post by molesy »

Great to see FUD alive and well on HN. Take a look at http://www.mmaglobal.com/bestpractices.pdf - if there is a service billing your phone directly that doesn't comply, they are in violation and will be shut off if you complain. Carrier customer service isn't always super helpful and there are possibly many companies between you and the product actually billing. This shouldn't be anything new to people who build products and use technology.

....

Yeah.

Re: Beware of Cramming on Your Cellphone Bill

#28

Post by iamleppert »

I also had this happen to me. Some daily joke service sent me a text message at 4 AM in the morning, followed by another message a second later stating I was now subscribed and would be billed $9.99 per month.

I waited until the end of my billing cycle to see if the charges actually were there. Sure enough, they were. I was almost in disbelief.

This is fraud, plain and simple. I called AT&T to dispute the charge and they did refund the money and put a block on my line for future charges.

But still as many have pointed out -- what of the many other people who do not notice the charge? It's clear to me that AT&T is to blame for allowing these companies a way to bill their customers and not policing them -- in this case the AT&T customer service rep admitted to knowing about cramming and how big a problem it is, even with this specific service. So other people have called about it and reported abuse, yet they have done nothing to ban the company. The burden here is clearly on the part of AT&T for letting these companies continue to bill people when they are implicitly aware of the fraud.

There really needs to be a big law firm that gets behind this and starts some class action litigation against the carriers. That seems to be the only way problems actually get fixed these days.

Re: Beware of Cramming on Your Cellphone Bill

#29

Post by dhimes »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #21
untog wrote: post #16

This is one of the reasons I stayed on a PAYG plan for as long as humanly possible. My burning resentment for my monthly plan has not yet subsided. Amongst the irritation: it costs me to receive text messages. Right now I have an unlimited text plan, but it's a waste of money, since I have Google Voice and text using it. But I also receive spam texts to my main cellphone number- so if I cancelled my text plan I would…

Being charged to receive texts never made sense to me. You're being charged for something you have zero control over - it would be like being charged per piece of mail you receive. Not to mention, someone who didn't like you could seriously ruin your month just by sending you a couple of text messages a day. There are services that let you do it for free online, aren't there?

Not to mention, someone who didn't like you could seriously ruin your month just by sending you a couple of text messages a day

Especially if you are traveling internationally. It really doesn't even have to be someone who doesn't like you. One woman (second-hand story) was traveling abroad when her son did something remarkable in an athletic contest. Well-meaning friends texted her pictures! $1200 US.

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