Double check your bill

[concreteguy]

Just got my Verizon bill and my wife phone had a $9.99 Premium Messaging charge. Talk to a Verizon rep and they could not tell me exactly who or what it was other than it came from 86358 and what date she "signed up" for it. According to US Cellular and other web sites, it belongs to "Horoscope Predicto". The Verizon rep told us to text "stop" to 86358 which she did. She got a reply right back "You are not subscribed to any services. For more support: call 18002357105 or e-mail help@sms-helpdesk.com". I will be calling Verizon back later to get this removed from our bill. I did get all "premium" stuff block on all our phones.

[concreteguy]

Just spent 10 minutes with a Verizon rep. I had to dig thru the details of the bill to see the "text". At first I could not see all of the activity that the rep could. I had to select "all" on the pages to see what had happened. I should have noticed right off I was not seeing everything (only 4 text total in one day by my wife?). In the span of 4 minutes somehow she had viewed, signed up, and then unsubscribed. My guess is it happened when she was on facebook. Also, non of these text show on her text log.

[Artemis68]

Remind your wife to be careful on FB. Stay away from sketchy applications and sites which ask to your number.

Sent from my VZW Thunderbolt.

[llella]

My mother did the same thing and says she doesnt know how she did it either. Once she replied "STOP" the charges stopped and Verizon credited back the $9.99 for the 1st charge.

I agree w/ the advice from the last post. Be careful of websites asking for your cell phone #.

[howarmat]

i just block premium messaging altogether on my line. it stops all the spam you get.

[thefinks]

I had same on wifes bb the rep at big red gave me # of crap place she never signed up for they in turn actually sent us a $20 check and an apology. We were only charged $9.99 so guess we made out on that one. But it is a pain in the A$$.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[TheScionicMan]

Had two $9.99 charges on my T-Mo bill recently, on my wife's phone. She got some SPAM text about winning something and replied and then replied to something else they sent. T-Mo was really cool about issuing a credit and blocking the numbers from their system altogether and locking down our lines from Premium SMS.

Sat the family down to remind them to never respond to stuff like that. My kids were like "Duh, of course not...", then we clowned on Mom for awhile...

[cbreze]

Never put your phone number out on the web on any site , ever, no matter how legit it sounds. Thats how you get signed up for B.S. charges.
These scam artists make millions and alot of people don't even look at their bill, paid automatically etc. I read somewhere a couple months back that the federal court system is looking into these bogus companies and going to make the practice illegal. FWIW.

[Engire]

Been in the news lately and is called "cramming". I need another post or so to post a link but a quick search will bring up articles about it. Seems Congress wants to get involved as well.

[cbreze]

I actually got hit with a text once that said I was signed up for some ringtone subscription. Unlimited selection and if I didn't text "STOP" back with in 30 min it would take affect. Unbelievable the gall of these companies and I was just a random number.