Beware of Cramming on Your Cellphone Bill

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/your-money/beware-of-cramming-on-your-cellphone-bill-the-haggler.html?_r=1&ref=technology

by FluidDjango • 14 years ago

69 35 14 years ago

nytimes.com

teilo• 14 years ago

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 second welcoming me to the service and inviting me to cancel with a "STOP" message, and the third with some stupid fact.

In my case, the STOP message, which I sent just about 20 minutes ago, seems to have worked. I got a response claiming I was unsubscribed from messages and fees.

I never subscribed to anything in the first place. This is fraud, plain and simple. In my case, I ignored the first advertisement sent on the 8th. Had I actually subscribed to this service, they wouldn't need to advertise it first. Since their first round of messages on Mar. 8 didn't succeed, I imagine they got bolder and decided to subscribe me (and everyone else in that batch) without my having asked.

Since this was from a few days ago, I cannot check to see if anything was billed to my Verizon account yet. That would show up on the next invoice. I did change my account settings right away, blocking all Premium SMS message services.

ben10402• 14 years ago

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.

unknsldr• 14 years ago

I received the three messages while I was reading the linked article! My messages came from "MobibroIQ". I did not respond.

I logged in to AT&T and launched a chat with Technical Support. I indicated in my description that I wanted to place a purchase block for 3rd party services billed to SMS. The entire exchange took about 10 minutes. I received an email for each line on my account indicating the purchase block had been activated and that a PIN code would be required for charges to apply. AT&T reported that the change could take up to 90 minutes to take effect. As I am typing this, I received a message from this "MobibroIQ" stating, "This msg confirms that u have discontinued and will no longer receive messages or charges for this service..."

Again, I did not reply "STOP."

I hope this solution is as painless and simple for you as it was for me.

EDIT: Follow up message from AT&T "To confirm, purchase blockers have been added to all lines and also checked your line #### & cancelled a subscript.charge for $9.99, will see credit next bill"

_delirium• 14 years ago

After this happened to me, I managed to get Sprint to lock my account from having any SMS subscriptions added, since I'm not in the habit of signing up for them on purpose. It took some persistence and a transfer to a manager, but they eventually agreed. Might be worth trying.

I do think the mobile phone companies are at the very least turning a blind eye to it; some very basic vetting, like making sure the company has an actual address at which they can receive postal mail that doesn't bounce, or terminating services that generate too large a percentage of fraud complaints, could catch a large portion of the worst offenders.

locopati• 14 years ago

It is unbelievable that this is not illegal.

techsupporter• 14 years ago

Cramming is illegal but there are two reasons why enforcement is lax: First, as the article points out (and attempts, by inference, to get the carriers to convict themselves of), the billing carrier earns a cut, usually in the 20-30% range. Second, the individual amounts are usually quite small so it's not "worth" anyone's time to actually investigate unless that person is the subscriber who got dinged.

Simply shutting off third-party billing would kill off all kinds of pretty revenue streams that U.S. mobile and wireline carriers just love, such as purchasing apps from the Android and Windows Phone marketplaces without a credit card and "accidentally" (or intentionally, since they are somewhat popular) signing up for premium services via SMS.

guard-of-terra2• 14 years ago

You can separate legitimate payments from fraud.

It's not even hard. But surely they, earning a cut, don't even want that.

felipemnoa• 14 years ago

I guess the easy targets are the phone companies themselves for facilitating/enabling the fraud. They should probably be the ones getting sued.

nisse72• 14 years ago

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.

dedward• 14 years ago

believe its true in canada as well..... automatically signing anyone up for something they didnt agree to is generally outright fraud............

guard-of-terra2• 14 years ago

In Russia they used to do that; later on the telcos were forced to require an explicit confirmation: a code would be sent to subscriber which they then has to willingly submit in order to subscribe.

And now half of the malware and shady websites would ask for your phone number and then trick you into telling them the confirmation code.

I think that such services should be illegal in the first place. That's the only way to protect subscribers. And they need to be protected: imagine it can be your granny who will end up paying tens of dollars monthly for nothing (I've got the impression they don't even send the SMSes you "subscribed" to, just charge the money)

I can't imagine a SMS subscription worth ten bucks monthly. Every one of them is a fraud.

sunsu2• 14 years ago

I had no idea that these "services" could automatically add themselves to your wireless bill without an Opt-In. I just checked my family's account and indeed there were 2 different subscriptions on 2 different numbers. Thank you for posting this, as I have no idea how long they've been on there. Now I'm just waiting until 9:00AM CST to call ATT...

jbscpa2• 14 years ago

Please consider not just cancelling but instead ask for (demand) a refund in full of all charges going back to the very first month. We have got to punish ATT for this gangster type behavior.

sunsu2• 14 years ago

I just got off the phone with ATT. I had all the charges (past and current) removed and credited to my account. I also had "Purchase Blocker" added to all 4 lines to prevent this from happening again.

jbscpa2• 14 years ago

I got one of those text messages in like early February. I ignored it of course and deleted it.

On my most recent phone bill I noticed an increase of about $10.00

Sure enough. By ignoring the text message and deleting it I was signed up of an unwanted $9.99 per month program.

I called ATT.

The ATT rep told me she would cancel the service immediately. She confirmed that by ignoring the text message I had "agreed" to the charges.

I told her that I wanted the $9.99 refunded. She said ATT would ONLY refund the $9.99 if I agreed to put in place a block on ALL future 3rd party charges on the cell phone bill.

I told her I wanted the block on all four of my cell phone lines immediately.

And I got the $9.99 refunded.

Long story short: ATT allows this because they benefit from this extremely anti-customer behavior.

The service I got crammed with was:

	 02/29/2012	 Saynow Alerts	 58497	 MT	 SayNow.com

For assistance contact: http:/www.mxtelecom.com

If you go to the www.mxtelecom.com it provides NO assistance what-so-ever.

According to the statement at www.saynow.com "SayNow has been acquired by Google, Inc. For media inquiries please contact press@google.com."

abruzzi• 14 years ago

Never been hit like a cost like this, but I figured why take the chance? I just called AT&T customer service and enabled "purchase blocker" on my line (which is only for family and emergencies anyway.) Thanks for posting that the block is even an option.

joeyh• 14 years ago

I've had the same experiences with both Verizon and Sprint. My conclusions about the telcos turning a blind eye are the same. I suspect these spammers leech onto large percentage of new cell phone customers.

I'm very happy to not currently need a cell phone.

sorghum• 14 years ago

I just got hit with this one too — they called themselves SayNow/mxtelecom.com on the bill, but MobibroIQ in the message itself.

The real culprit appears to be Bullroarer, Inc: http://www.bullroarer.com

mobibro.com lists the email address support@ihelpmobile.com and the phone number 888-890-6150. Googling either of those reveals many other spammy SMS services, one of which is clubmorty.com. Their contact page says they are owned and operated by Bullroarer: http://www.clubmorty.com/vm/pge_contactus.vm

jiggy2011• 14 years ago

So how did he end up subscribed to this in the first place? I assume he must have signed up in the small print by signing upto some other service.

If this was not the case then I would expect this to be much more prevalent , if you could start charing people so much money by simply sending an SMS then everyone and his dog would be at it.

untog• 14 years ago

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 actually be paying money to receive spam. Mind-bending.

pavel_lishin• 14 years ago

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?

esrauch• 14 years ago

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

dhimes• 14 years ago

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.

RexRollman• 14 years ago

I believe that the carriers should be forced to a "sender pays" model for SMS or be required to give people the ability to opt out of them.

zomgbbq• 14 years ago

If you call AT&T you can block them from automatically subscribing to services without your explicit consent. The most interesting thing about these services is that almost all billing for these services occur through a subsidiary business of Verisign. I was shocked to learn this because I've always thought that Verisign was a trusted company.

jacquesm• 14 years ago

> I was shocked to learn this because I've always thought that Verisign was a trusted company.

You mean this verisign?

http://slashdot.org/story/03/09/16/0034210/resolving-everyth...

radog• 14 years ago

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.

ben10402• 14 years ago

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."

molesy• 14 years ago

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.

iamleppert• 14 years ago

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.

jwr• 14 years ago

So what if you have a MiFi and never actually see any SMS messages?

I'm puzzled by how this could possibly be legal.

MarkPNeyer• 14 years ago

it's bullshit like this that will let twilio take over the mobile market when they choose to go that route.

i'll be first in line to sign up for twilio's pay as you go voice + data service.

atesti• 14 years ago

Could this have been caused by an app on your smartphone that subscribes you or even uses the old WAP protocol?

wccrawford• 14 years ago

This happened to my father. Not from this company, but from others.

We didn't catch it for months. T-Mobile was kind enough to remove charges for a few months back, but said they couldn't remove anything beyond that. Which I felt was understandable.

What I didn't like was that the only way to block future versions of these was to block messaging entirely for that line, and to that (without blocking the other lines) was to pay for a service that let me set fine-grained restrictions on the lines.

See, it's my dad's line, and he's not tech-savvy, so he thought that ignoring them was the best way to go. I don't blame him, as that's the way it should be. Nobody should be able to add charges to your line without express permission.

That should include calling numbers that have a toll charge, too. It should actually ask you when you call the number if you're willing to pay the charge. Likewise for SMS messages. If not, the call/SMS won't go through.

Why this has managed to be this way for so long is beyond me. It only serves to promote fraud.

drucken• 14 years ago

Startling article!

You would be eviscerated at every level if you tried to do this anywhere in the EU...

Not sure how this is possible, even in the US, since it should be a large risk to the carriers.

Beware of Cramming on Your Cellphone Bill

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