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Canadians File Class Actions Over Incoming SMS Fees
dontmakemethink writes "CTV reports that over the last couple of weeks class-action lawsuits have been filed against two major Canadian cellular service providers, Bell and Telus, for imposing fees on incoming text messages. While there has been very vocal opposition to the introduction of the fees, those who cannot change providers due to binding contracts feel the situation is actionable in court. Some of those not bound by contract, such as myself, have given their service provider notice that they will charge the provider for having to contact them to have charges reversed for unsolicited texts. Because service providers are aware of the volume of unsolicited texts, we feel they are liable for the inconvenience to their clients for preventing spam charges, and more importantly under no circumstances should service providers profit from spam. We also feel that requiring us to buy text bundles to avoid the inconvenience of reversing spam charges constitutes extortion. They can charge me for texts when they stop the spam."
Honestly, why do service providers in the west still use SMS as a messaging service?
I'm in Japan and we use actual Email addresses for messaging and you only get charged normal packet fees (the same price for packets as you pay for browsing the web).
I think I answered my own question: money
Heh, except for those stupid "send me a ring tone" things, where they charge you $4.99 per message and you have to call an unhelpful man in India you get it canceled.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Dealing with the matter in the courts, or through cancelling the service, would make far more sense.
Dealing through the courts: No, that would not make sense. Lawyers cost money. The idea is to not spend more money. Being charged for received messages (plus a 'spam tax') is not just unpleasant. It costs money.
And canceling the service (wrt the cases in question) would often mean canceling all cellphone service. In many parts of Canada, there is only one available telecom and no alternatives. The telecom industry here is made of just a few lethargic behemoths, and there's only a semblance of competition in the higher population density regions. No disrespect intended, but do you understand why people are feeling frustrated here?
What's the value of information that you don't know?
But then I live in a country (Belgium)
Europe's cell phones are billed very differently than north american cell phones. In Europe, fees for incoming calls are caller paid, in North America fees for incoming calls are callee paid. It was a 'natural' extension for people to pay for incoming SMS messages too (of course they took the opportunity to also charge for sending text messages too, mainly because they could).
The post seemed straightforward and logical to me. You can't be charged for incoming text if text messaging is disabled on an account. Some providers make it easier than others to disable text service on a phone. Sprint is mildly annoying to disable, T-Mobile is no-thought-required easy. No experience with other providers, but it's still possible. Non-chargeable system texts still come through.
The people who get screwed are those who use texting but don't have unlimited plans.
even more amusingly, you can simply sign up someone you don't like via a website simply by knowing their phone number. good times.
This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
You're ignoring his main point, that they are under no obligation to pay when they receive this 'bill.' So either way you go, it'll end up in court eventually. As it should.
I'm glad this sort of shit doesn't happen in Australia, only the sender of an SMS/phonecall gets charged here
All the more reason to be concerned...The fact that we were in your situation just a month ago shows how quickly you could end up in ours.
I don't see this happening in Australia.
1) The market has moved many plans to provide effectively free sending of sms.
2) There are 2 government organisations watching the industry. One purely for telecommunications, TIO. The second a general consumer affairs, ACA. Plus loads of well respected private groups, lobbyists etc.
3) If a contract is substantially changed you have the right to cancel it. Generally if telcos want to make changes they are reflected in the contracts on offer, they don't alter contracts midway.
It's the same here. I work in a call centre for one of the main UK mobile phone networks (thus AC), and this is one of the biggest complaints I get. People call up asking why their credit is disappearing (I'm on the Pay As You Go department), and I explain that they've been receiving these texts which have been taking £1.50 a time.
It's not the fact that someone can be charged £1.50 for an individual message, it's the fact that these companies can send out many messages at the same time and bill you individually for each message. I once spoke to a gentleman who had lost a total of £18 from 12 messages that he received at once. Thankfully he took the news well.
In Europe, no provider can charge to receive text messages. Well, in theory they could, but would probably have a mass exodus of customers since the very idea of being charged to receive texts is a ludicrous one. Unfortunately though, this leads to the above situation where people don't realise that they're being billed £1.50 a time to basically receive crap to their phone.
In short, Jamster, Red Circle, Zamano , et al= Biggest pain in the arse for the UK mobile phone industry.
The thinking is the person who chose the "final mile" should pay for the additional cost of that final mile. That is, if I choose to make myself available via a cellphone, it's not fair on my callers if I force them to pay for my choice in using a cellphone.
Obviously this makes sense for phone calls, where it's not as if you have to answer a call. For SMS messaging, where you don't get a choice about whether to accept a message or not, it just plain doesn't work.
In the US, cellphone operators have chosen to deal with the "incoming calls" issue via a variety of means, but essentially you get about double the amount of minutes you would get in, say, the UK, for the same subscription, almost always coupled with a fairly generous unmetered element. Around $50 per month will get you unmetered nights and weekends, plus unmetered calls to other people on the same network at any time of day or day of the week, plus around 500 minutes to use for the remaining metered calls (incoming and outgoing.) I seriously doubt there are many phone users, outside of pre-paid, who have a single problem with the incoming calls issue.
For text messaging, the situation is more complex, with most operators giving you a ridiculously expensive per-message rate for incoming and outgoing messages (T-Mobile's prices have quadrupled in the last three or four years), but offering some kind of bolt-on to your plan that either bundles a large number of messages or makes them completely unlimited.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Texting is popular in the UK (Europe?) because many people have pay-as-you-go phones, on which incoming calls are free (the callee pays extra to call a mobile phone) but outgoing calls are up to 25p a minute - so for a short message SMS is the cheapest option.
Here in Canada there is another option: Virgin Mobile. No connection fees, call waiting fees, etc. And certainly no fees for incoming text messages. But wait, doesn't Virgin Mobile rent space on Bell's network?
Oh yeah, that's right. Bell owns 50% of Virgin Mobile Canada and as part of the deal Virgin pays Bell the cost of using their system (plus a bit extra) and of course profits from being a 50% owner.
So what do they charge Virgin Mobile for each text message sent over their network?
About 1/10th of a penny.
So suffice to say, I don't buy it when Bell and Telus claim that the 15 cents is to cover the costs of receiving that text message.
Yes you can. Well, if you have Telus, you can. I called them and said "disable text", and they did. What's the problem?
1-3 KB? An sms message is maximum 140 bytes (160 7-bit characters). If you count protocol overheard, you might be looking at about 256 bytes total. Also, the biggest problem with charging for incoming SMS is that you can't choose not to receive it. With a phone call you can always not pick up, if you don't feel like paying for it, or cut it off it goes on too long. With SMS you have no choice but to receive it. According to other posters, they don't even care if your phone is on and you don't receive it, which would be even worse.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
You are wrong. There are 2+ million crimes yearly in the US prevented by use of a gun, most of those without firing it.
Most gun deaths in the US are criminals on criminals, and those people are criminals only because of the War On (Some) Drugs.
Doctors' bad handwriting alone is responsible for 7000+ deaths a year in the US. Medical mistakes in the US kill 200,000+ a year. Cars kill 40,000+, more than guns.
Where's your outrage about cars and doctors? Wheress your outrage about the War On (Some) Drugs?
Refusing to face facts is a good sign of cowardice. What exactly about guns scares you so much, so irrationally, when cars and doctors kill far more people, and when most gun deaths are criminals anyway?
Infuriate left and right