bobbo, I just unplugged my shades says:

Gag me with a spoonful of maggots. I had to stop watching at 2:45 where his guest list was shown. I’d pay money to have those folks no where near me.

But–just another instance of the lack of CONSUMER PROTECTION from obvious criminality. Surprise (really–for true) that these “mandatory opt out” provisions aren’t already illegal.

All big business is corrupt. “Thank you for using Comcast today” as if I had a choice.

ubet426 says:

Man! Why didn’t I think of that? It’s so simple! These freaking idiots are too stupid to read their bill and just send money to me every month! I’m going to have to work on a new business plan

Seriously… This is ingenious!

VZW Emloyee says:

See these ALL the time. Too many to count. Like previously stated often under the guise of a coupon, free ringtone, dating advice, joke of the day etc. A lot of times you don’t even get what you were promised.
Some blame is on the customer, if you are that hard up and cannot pay .99c for a ringtone you really want – Deal without it. If there is a animated picture of a girls bouncing boobies you MUST have on your phone, learn how to connect it to a computer and download millions of free boobies from the internet.
Some of the blame is on VZW. There is a feature list on everyone’s acct. Simple, neat check boxes. One of them is “Block Premium SMS” – It should be checked by default and only unblocked at customer request instead of vice versa. That would eliinate 905% of this hassle.

1873 Colt says:

The simple reason these scams work is because your cellphone bill is so complicated, and contains so many damn added charges.
How about a 49.99 a month cell phone service costing 49.99?????

jescott418 says:

How sad that people are getting wealthy on this kind of scam. What’s even worse is the number of people who will work for such a scammer and not think twice about it. I just got scammed at Cash4Laptops.com. They quoted me $322 for a 6month old used Laptop and they offered me $145!
I consider myself a very smart consumer. But I really felt ripped off.
What we need is a Government FTC that has some real teeth to stop some of this. Its obviously genius to scam so little people hardly notice the fee’s.
Look at how many businesses legally charge fee’s with little or no overhead on their part. Its just a fee.

spsffan says:

Well, if you had a phone that was just a phone, and didn’t do stupid things like text with it, it wouldn’t be a problem.

Well, if you actually looked at your bills before paying them, it wouldn’t be a problem.

Well, if you had some self control such that you didn’t generate a 38 page cell phone bill to being with, it wouldn’t be a problem.

Well, if you didn’t allow anything except phone service on your cell phone bill it wouldn’t be a problem.

Me? I gave up paying the cheapest, grandfathered in $19 a month ATT cell plan ($25 with the taxes) where I never even used up the minutes. I switched to a prepaid that I have to put $15 a month into, and even there, I don’t use it up. It accumulates and I have something like $80 on it now. I guess I could call my sister and have her blabber on for a few hours….

dcphill says:

I use “P.O.T.S.” and don’t have that problem.
My problem is charges, fees, and taxes that add up to 10% of the basic charge.

mharry860 says:

Wow, I’ve gotten several of those in the past 2 months. I figured if you responded that they would then know it was a legitimate number and then the real spamming would begin. I guess I now have to start looking at my bills.

Mark says:

This is happening with Canadian cell companies too. I purchased a new phone with a new number in October and received a similar text message about a month later telling me to text back “STOP” to not be charged (some sort of celebrity news service, which I never signed up for or received updates from). To be clear, the only companies that had this number was Telus and Future Shop (where I bought the phone).

So, thinking that it was spam, I ignored it, like we’ve been told so long to do regarding email spam. Sure enough, when my bill came in, there was a text message charge. I called Telus to complain and try to have them explain to me how someone can just charge me without confirmation. She told me that is how the system works and if I receive another message like that to text back “STOP”. My account was credited the amount, but obviously these scammers are making millions doing this.