I discovered another joy of tech trends recently. I turned on my cell phone over break. Four text messages came in from two 5-digit senders who auto-subscribed me to very expensive monthly services without my consent. One was a ridiculous $9.99/day! Are you kidding me? I do not use premium text numbers. I have never once text-voted in any online or TV event. I could care less about these services and I’d certainly never enroll with them.
At the bottom of each message was the instruction to text ‘STOP’ to the sender to get the services stopped. I replied with the instruction, but I also called my cell provider out of suspicion. My cell carrier informed me that I was already charged by both services. No one made any effort to verify whether I wanted the services.
Welcome to a new evolution in slamming. In the 90’s and early 2000’s, some dishonest companies dialed random phone numbers and used the fact that someone answered the phone as implied consent to change their long-distance service. Phone providers allowed people to place freezes on their accounts to refuse any changes the customer didn’t specifically authorize in writing. You had to know to do it, though. The account freezing wasn’t automatic. Now you have to do it for your cell phone. Even if your cell carrier does this, users still aren't protected against one-ring scams, smishing and other text messaging scams.
I find it hard to believe a cell company thinks it’s good business to simply run any random charge on an account from an outside party. I was slammed by text services texting random numbers. I don’t even give my cell number out, so there’s little chance I gave them my number to abuse. I expressed my disappointment with my cell company for adding the charges and asked them to reverse them. I then asked to block all premium text numbers from my phone, which they also did. Hopefully, this stops it.
I recommend anyone reading this to call their cell provider and make sure outside billers can’t add charges to your bill. If you don’t use these services, there’s no need to give them easy access to your account. Having a cell phone is expensive enough. No one should have to deal with random ambush charges on top of that.
At the bottom of each message was the instruction to text ‘STOP’ to the sender to get the services stopped. I replied with the instruction, but I also called my cell provider out of suspicion. My cell carrier informed me that I was already charged by both services. No one made any effort to verify whether I wanted the services.
Welcome to a new evolution in slamming. In the 90’s and early 2000’s, some dishonest companies dialed random phone numbers and used the fact that someone answered the phone as implied consent to change their long-distance service. Phone providers allowed people to place freezes on their accounts to refuse any changes the customer didn’t specifically authorize in writing. You had to know to do it, though. The account freezing wasn’t automatic. Now you have to do it for your cell phone. Even if your cell carrier does this, users still aren't protected against one-ring scams, smishing and other text messaging scams.
I find it hard to believe a cell company thinks it’s good business to simply run any random charge on an account from an outside party. I was slammed by text services texting random numbers. I don’t even give my cell number out, so there’s little chance I gave them my number to abuse. I expressed my disappointment with my cell company for adding the charges and asked them to reverse them. I then asked to block all premium text numbers from my phone, which they also did. Hopefully, this stops it.
I recommend anyone reading this to call their cell provider and make sure outside billers can’t add charges to your bill. If you don’t use these services, there’s no need to give them easy access to your account. Having a cell phone is expensive enough. No one should have to deal with random ambush charges on top of that.