Back in May, the AGO posted to this blog about cramming. Cramming is, according to the FTC, “the practice of placing unauthorized, misleading, or deceptive charges on your telephone bill. Crammers rely on confusing telephone bills in an attempt to trick consumers into paying for services they did not authorize or receive, or that cost more than the consumer was led to believe.” You may have also seen a story on WHDH Channel 7 news earlier this week about cramming (Hank Investigates: Ringtone Racket, August 10, 2009).
You probably did not know that anytime you or your child provides a cell phone number in response to an online quiz or contest, you may actually be signing up for a costly subscription service which will show up as a charge every month on your wireless phone bill. Third party companies providing jokes, quizzes, trivia, ringtones are marketing directly to children and teens, often through social networking sites. The advertisement may appear to offer a "free" ring tone or IQ test, for example. The fine print tells you that by providing your cell phone number and accepting the "free" product, you are also agreeing to purchase a monthly subscription for which you will be billed. The charge will appear as "Premium Text Messaging" (typically $9.90 per message) on your phone bill.
For this reason, you should inspect every cell phone bill carefully for unexpected charges. If you do discover premium text messaging charges you should immediately contact your cell phone customer service department and request the contact information for the third party companies and the instructions to unsubscribe. Once you have unsubscribed, you should then request that every phone (especially those of children and teenagers) have this premium text messaging feature blocked.
Better yet – you may want to act now and block premium text messaging services on all of your cell phones and those of your family before any costly charges appear on your phone bill. Contact your service provider for assistance.
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