Texting Messaging Gone Wrong: Scams
By: Chris Brubaker
Finishing our two part series on Texting Gone Wrong is scams. Last week we talked about spamming and the negative affects it has on the texting industry (Text Spam). This week we’re focusing on texting scams and shady business practices.
Premium Texting
What does text messaging cost? Usually around $0.15 to $0.20 per message sent or received. What if the next time you looked at your bill you saw a message that cost $0.50 or $1.25. This type of SMS is usually labeled as a “Premium Text Message”. Services such as your daily horoscope, weather, sports scores or more can cost upwards of a dollar per text, be careful of these services when you sign up.
Monthly Fee’s
Want a free ringtone, or wallpaper? Simply text the number 1 to 55555.
Advertisements like that are one of the many ways companies get you on premium text messaging rates. If you’re not careful, these very same ads can also charge a per month fee on top of premium texting fees, hitting you twice with expensive hidden charges.
Scams
Both premium texting and the monthly fees that companies try to pass on to consumers are usually hidden in fine print at the bottom of ads, mixed in with legal jargon to better disguise the charges. Making matters worse are service providers, officially putting the burden on the consumer to cancel or deactivate these services/charges once they are discovered. If you can’t remember where or what you signed up for it can be a long cumbersome process, not to mention these companies don’t want to be found or make it easy for you to cancel.
It is illegal for companies not to display pricing information if they themselves charge anything for their service besides standard texting fees. “My child did it” is not an excuse carriers or these companies accept, so be weary of those commercials you see on TV with fun animations and the words “TEXT to ####” running across the screen as those are the pinnacle of overcharging for texts. Look before you leap text at the fine print at the bottom of the screen and you might save yourself a couple of bucks.
Bob Sullivan of The Red Tape Chronicles equates the rise in SMS scams to the problem telecoms had in the 90’s with 1-900 numbers. If carriers don’t keep these companies in check texting could go the way of the 900 number, riddled with scams and sneaky services charges.
HouseFront’s SMS service is completely free of charge, Text any address to ‘HOUSE’ or 46873 and only standard text messaging rates apply. Companies like HouseFront offer consumers innovative text messaging services that provide convenience and access to information while on the go. Spamming and texting scams effect consumers trust in text messaging, dwindling innovation and use.
For a great list of innovative (spam/scam free) texting companies check out our Text Thursday Series.
March 24th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
I am the webmaster of http://www.spamfreetext.com, which is also a free service, and which is now in public Beta testing.
The concept is similar to others you have described: Users create an account and are assigned a page on my server, which in turn they can link to from their site. Potential clients click on the link and are able to send a text email message to the user’s phone. The messages are filtered for spam before being sent, and those that appear to have been robotically generated are silently discarded.
Clients do not have to register to use the service, although users (those to whom the messages are is sent) obviously do have to register so the server knows where to send the messages. This serves a good purpose: The registered user’s text address is stashed away server-side and doesn’t appear on the form, so it can’t be harvested by spambots.
Registered users also can log into a control panel to change their text message address if their phone number changes, or to turn the service on and off. When turned off, people who click the link to the user’s form will see a message that the user is not receiving messages at the moment.
I have some other features planned for the future which will only be available for premium users, such as a secure (https) portal, a Web interface to check messages, the ability to automatically turn the service on and off on a regular schedule, and the ability to save multiple text message addresses (handy for companies that have different people “on duty” to handle emergencies at different times).
But for now, while the service is in Beta, I’m just offering the free service. I want to make sure any remaining bugs are squished before asking for money. In any case, my present plan is to keep the basic service available for free even after the Beta period is over.
Thanks,
Richard