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Another Way Carriers Screw Customers: Premium SMS 'Errors'
An anonymous reader writes "Almost no one likes their carrier. And with the behavior described in this article, it's not surprising. TechCrunch catches T-Mobile taking money from a new pay-as-you-go customer after signing her up to its own premium horoscope text message service — and taking money before she's even put the SIM in the phone. Quoting: 'Perhaps carriers think they can get away with a few “human errors” in the premium SMS department because these services aren’t regulated. Perhaps it’s also symptomatic of the command and control mindset of these oligarchs. What’s certain is that if carriers dedicated a little of the energy they plough into maintaining these anachronistic, valueless (to their customers, that is) premium SMS ‘services’ into creating genuinely useful services that customers want to use then they would have a better shot at competing with the startups leapfrogging their gates. Or they would, if they hadn’t spent years destroying the trust of their users by treating them like numbers on a spreadsheet.'"
My carrier (in another country mind you) lets me completely disable premium SMS and MMS services.
T-mobile stores and their store employees are the worst. They'll say anything to sell you a phone and sign a new contract. When I added a note 2 they charged activation fee, premium warranty $15/mo and called ID. I paid full price for the phone, and I specifically requested no warranty. They had a promotion and still do where activation fee is waived but they still charged it. After calling them several times I was able to fix the situation, but what I've learned is that t-mobile stores are crooks
...if they hadn’t spent years destroying the trust of their users by treating them like numbers on a spreadsheet.
Clearly this was the work of a video gamer.
They're by far the least evil of the major carriers in the US.
The Internet King? I wonder if he could provide faster nudity.
So I work for one of the largest European A2P messaging companies. That's application to person. Premium SMS, which is a huge revenue generator for us, is actually absolutely peanuts for an operator. For example at t mobile in Germany they have maybe 10 people in the whole department. Nobody cares, including the customer. They merrily pay their 1â per month without noticing because they're too lazy to turn off the service they asked for 5 years ago when premium SMS services were hot. That said we help draft regulation to prevent abuses throughout Europe. Tmobiles customer service may suck in general but this isn't really news.
They have been doing their competitive race to the bottom for so long, they just don't know how to change. I've been with T-Mobile for a long time myself and have been wasting money on data plans I don't really use. In another few weeks, I'm switching over to a basic service pre-paid type thing. No Data.
It's at times like these when I reconsider when I need vs. what I want. I already moved my wife over to a prepaid carrier with no ill effects and a whole lot of savings. Gonna put mine on there as well when my early termination fee goes low enough.
No more over-priced subsidized phones. This is especially true when you see T-Mobile selling the Nexus 4 unsubsidized for far more than Google was selling it. It was insulting to the public's intelligence. And when I am told "you are required to have a data plan because you have a smart phone" I have to wonder how or why. I just want telephone service and they won't just give it to me. It's nonsense.
Sprint was my first carrier. They jacked me around too much. The only way to get what you want was to tell them you are leaving their service. That was an annoying game after the first couple of times. Next was T-Mobile. And they were better than the others from what I was hearing. At the end of the day, they all suck though.
I just want my freedom back and I only want to pay for what I use.
Odd, it seems someone should notify John Legere that he's dishing up some new fangled bullshit instead of the old fangled bullshit we all know and hate. He also said, "This is the biggest crock of shit I've ever heard in my entire life. Do you have any idea how much you're paying?" But apparently that was only about his competitor's pricing models ...
My work here is dung.
Perhaps carriers think they can get away with a few “human errors” in the premium SMS department because these services aren’t regulated. Perhaps it’s also symptomatic of the command and control mindset of these oligarchs. What’s certain is that if carriers dedicated a little of the energy they plough into maintaining these anachronistic, valueless (to their customers, that is) premium SMS ‘services’ into creating genuinely useful services that customers want to use then they would have a better shot at competing with the startups leapfrogging their gates. Or they would, if they hadn’t spent years destroying the trust of their users by treating them like numbers on a spreadsheet.
Okay, see that entire section of the summary? The one that started out with the weasel word "perhaps" and spun right off into wild speculation and generic "grrrrrrrrrr NERD RAEG!!!1!"? Yeah. That whole part could've been ditched. Not only would it not have hurt the summary to get rid of it, it would've IMPROVED it by not making Slashdot look like just another bog standard snide news website.
Oh, what's that, you say? Then the summary would've seemed too short? No problem. How about adding in one or two actual DETAILS, rather than something that just boils down to "RRRRRRR CARRIER DONE SOMETHING WITH SMS! HAAAAATE SMS!"? That would get you above your word quota.
I think att's business model was to place false charges on customer's bills, and hope the customer didn't notice. It was ridiculous! All three iterations of the company, same slimy business practices. If I did not challenge every bill from these scumbags, they would have stolen thousands of dollars from me over the years (tried them twice, by choice-- once as SBC and once as Cingular, then they bought out my local carrier, and I got stuck with them for 1 month as att-- all three had false charges on every statement).
Sad to see t-mobile doing this sort of thing, as they are the best (as in price / respecting their customers) national carrier in the U.S.
As I type this, my father is on his phone yelling at his carrier. He's now spent over 20 hours this month yelling at them over the same billing error. He's furious, and it all makes sense.
I have the same carrier. I'm very happy with my carrier. But I've done things very differently. And I continue to do things differently.
The carrier did mis-bill my father. Absolutely and without question. Whether or not it was intentional is optionally obvious. But it's irelevant. My father, like most people, calls them, expects them to work out the issue on the phone for him immediately. And while we all know they should, and they could, it takes twenty minutes and then they don't. Again, intentional or otherwise is up to you.
I've seen all of you guys get frustrated with this sort of thing. So I've solved the problem. Here's what I did, and what I do.
First, I have a "business account". The only difference between a business account and a consumer account is that I asked for a "business account" and they call it a "business account". Otherwise, it's the same. All plans are available to me the same way. If anything, it actually reduces the availabitily of customer support because I need to be transfered to a business account person. Again, true or not is up to your own belief system.
Second, I don't expect anything to ever get done immediately over the phone. About once a quarter, sometimes once a month, I have some sort of an issue to deal with. Maybe billing, maybe account change, maybe whatever. I call, I leave the phone on speaker-phone until I get the right person -- sometimes I'm on hold for twenty minutes, rarely but sometimes. Doesn't matter, I'm working to hold music instead of to my own music, big deal.
Then, I ask for whatever I want. If it doesn't get done and solved perfectly in five minutes by the first reasonable-correct agent, I simply say: "I need to go, please work this out and call me back tomorrow at this time." 90% of the time, that's exactly what happens, and it's perfect. The remaining 10% of the time, if they don't call me back and it doesn't get done, then I walk into the physical brick and mortar store, and say exactly the same thing -- to someone wearing a manager tag. I smile, I shake her hand, I flirt a little (it works between men too, by the way), and I ask them to do me the personal favour and call me back with the solution -- and I give them a full week.
I think a lot of you forget that, assuming your phone is functional, all of these billing- and plan-, and account-related issues can be worked out retro-actively. There really is no rush. It's not urgent.
So I live a very happy life. I get problems solved within a week, with minimal time and effort spent by me. Why does anyone need any more? You deserve to have your problem solved. You don't deserve to have your problem solved within an hour.
I can't speak for the UK, but I know that this has happened to me on a few carriers before (back when I was jumping from prepaid to prepaid). First thing I did was always call up and remove premium SMS services from my line and have them blocked when switching to a new PAYG phone. It's what you have to do when you have no idea who signed up for what with your 'new' phone number before you had it.
That, and of every carrier I've been with, T-Mo has treated me the best, and every time I went for renewal, they always found me ways to save money off my bill based on usage. I'm paying $65/mo now for unlimited Text and 4G, with 500 minutes - Going down to $45/mo after my phone subsidy is payed off in 20 months. They have always been very up front about everything, and I've never received a bill from them with a nasty surprise. Well, I take that back, I did get one that was $75 over, they noticed it was some stupid error, and corrected the bill accordingly. Only took 1 15 minute phone call. The article is very shortsighted and just seems like they needed a sensationalist story to pull more views to their page.
What's certain is that if carriers dedicated a little of the energy they plough into maintaining these anachronistic, valueless (to their customers, that is) premium SMS 'services'
If customers find them valueless, why do they sign up for them? They are optional. So optional, I've never heard of them even after being a ten year customer of T-Mobile.
After reading TFA .. yes the newly minted SIM card was receiving premium SMS before even being inserted into a phone. But from TFA, they talk about how phone numbers are recycled, so there is a chance that the previous owner's profile was not properly scrubbed before the number was re-issued and that previous owner had subscribed to that service.
The TFS and TFA are beat ups based on the complainer speculating that because they were given the run around by customer service that T-Mobile is acting in a nefarious manner. That and *gasp* they had to give their elderly family member's birthdate over as a part of the activation , and that the horoscopes being received matched the birthdate.
So as far as I see .. it's all speculation and conjecture.
(And yes I admit that I am a happy T-mobile customer, but that has nothing to do with this hatchet job)
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
I've been using prepaid for a few years now. Tried Boost first, didn't like it. Switched to Straight Talk which was OK. Then just recently I switched over to Page Plus. Liking it a lot better. Page Plus uses Verizon's network and just about any Verizon phone can be activated on their service without being unlocked (though 4G/LTE phones can be a pain). That said, all of the prepaid carriers I tried were a fine replacement for a contract carrier, and far less expensive.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
I guess the problem is somewhere else...
There are no oligarchs here.
There are several oligopolists.
Fixed.
I had to argue with a UK carrier to get a refund on the international roaming that I had done in the EU. My trouble tickets were closed without a proper resolution (I received a small refund) and it took a lot of persistence to get a full refund.
EU roaming rates are limited by EU regulations, yet there were reports of the same problem going back months (to the date that the roaming rates were limited by EU regulations).
I can understand human error leading to roaming rates being incorrect when the limits were first implemented, but almost a year later? It's hard to believe that mere human error is at fault here. Perhaps the fact that the carrier has a huge financial incentive in *not* fixing the problem.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
As part of an Ofcom directive to ensure that the UK doesn’t run out of numbers, PAYG numbers are recycled. In this instance, it appears that the premium text service attached to the number remained when the number was transferred to [the customer]. When PAYG numbers are recycled, they are attached to new SIMs so no personal data is transferred.
We have placed a block on [the customer's] account to stop any further texts and we have credited her account to cover the charges incurred.
This was an isolated human error and no personal data was shared. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.
Shitty nonetheless, but they did fix it once they realized what was going on.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
What I wonder about is the type of people these companies employ to enable this sort of crap. Does somebody check a box that says "[x] sign up for premium text service?"
Do they get a bonus when they sign a few dozen little-old-ladies up for account-skimming horoscope services?
a) So the first person says it was activated from the phone... 2 days before the SIM was put in. Lies.
b) Then they say it's a third-party that is doing the billing. Lies
c) Then they say it was from a person who previously had the number. Given that they'd already claimed (a) and (b) - not to mention the horoscope mysteriously matching the owner's birthdate - I'd go with more lies.
So where do these companies find employees that are willing to perpetuate these scams. Isn't there anybody who would speak out (or leak the sinister details)? It's evil, but it can only happen if the employees are willing to help it along.
Call up and block ALL 3rd party billing and any "services" Honestly all of these things are complete scams today. Who in their right mind would "subscribe" to any of this crap when you can buy a $0.99 app that will do it for you forever for free?
All SMS and MMS subscription services are scams. Call up your carrier and block this now before you get hit with it.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
that this article appears the day T-Mobile ditches the service contract and starts selling the iPhone. I mean, this isn't just about T-Mobile, because "almost no one likes their carrier", am I right?
Where do these imaginary start-ups get the billions in funding to roll out a national cellular network?
If they're simply reselling the local incumbent's services, guess who gets most of the money without having to deal with the advertising and customer service?
http://www.ting.com/
It's hard to be happier.
If you like it enough to sign up, let me shill it for you and get us both a discount.
I think its more of a first world problem. The US and the UK both are screwed over by their cellular carriers. Example, AT&T charges $3.99/minute to use my cell phone in Indonesia. For a $10 sim card with a local number, I got 1000 minutes, unlimited text, unlimited data. Calling home on that card, would last about 13 minutes. less than 1/4 of what it cost to use my ATT sim card. Reloads on that card were even cheaper. I've been in the middle of nowhere Kazakhstan talking on my phone, but get a dropped call in the middle of Houston going over a bridge. The big difference I seen is internationally, they have to buy the phone. so EVERYONE sells phones and there is competition. You can buy a cheap block phone for $20 to a nice smart phone for $300 or $400 for the latest.
SMS messages on its own are a scam by mobile providers. In the end it cost them nothing for the transport since SMS messages are embedded in the message that your cellphone sends constantly to the tower saying "im here". Secondly providers are seeing the widespread abuse of premium sms / call numbers using malware and other criminal/shady operations where the user is tricked into subscribing or forcibly subscribed to a premium service. They are just trying to cash in on a multi-million dollar industry. Not to forget the massive decline of sms income which used to be nearly pure profit to applications like whatsapp, facebook and others.
Here in the USA, what isn't explicitly regulated by some federal agency (as a result of legislation) and is sold to consumers falls under the jurisdiction of the states consumer protection laws.
So, I'll see them in court. In Texas.
Have gnu, will travel.
If Verizon Wireless is the Republican party - interested just in clever new ways to extract more money from those with the least money to spend so they can funnel it to the top executives - then T-Mobile is the democratic party, promising all kinds of things that they can't deliver while ultimately giving you the same lousy and uncaring product as the Republicans but with a fresher face to it.
In the same vein - and I know this won't be popular here:
Sprint is Ron Paul. He wants you to believe he's different but ultimately he's just another high priced fascist who happens to have better PR.
AT&T is the green party. They have a couple of ideas worth exploring, but they can't get their shit together well enough to convince anyone that they are important, and they lack the discipline to return calls when people have questions.
And Virgin Mobile is "the rent is too damn high" party. They have catchy slogans and good PR but ultimately we've seen all these parts before and we know how this story will go.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
"Fixed"
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
I've been using Page Plus Cellular since January of 2009 and I will never go back to T-Mobile, AT&T, Sprint, or Verizon. With Page Plus, I am in control as there are no automated premium SMS features to sign up for and there are few gotchas. I like paying 55.00 per month for service levels that would be a lot more expensive at the big boy's doorstep and I've been contract free for four years now. I bought a brand new iPhone 4S and activated it on PP without an issue and I have an iPhone at a fraction of the service cost! 3G is good enough for all but the most demanding of video streaming.
captcha-breaker poc?
Every time this sort of things happen to me, I call them, informing them I did not hire that service, so they can't legally charge me for it.
I've gotten a refund every time (a couple of times, rounded up - I got $5 instead of the actual total of $4.85).
After feeling the same way with every major carrier today and some that no longer exist I finally found a cell phone company I like. Ting.com
No I don't work for them, but I find them to be honest! Yep I said the H word. Unbelievable as it may sound I actually do like my cell phone company now. So it is possible to find an honest cell phone company.
What the hell is that?
Same day as T-Mobile announces going no contract on all plans. I find the timing of this anonymous post suspicious.
T-Mobile USA is a completely separate entity from the European version of T-Mobile (UK/etc). The European branch is still owned by Deutsch Telecom, whereas T-Mobile USA is a separate entity. John Legere has no control over the European company.
Almost no one likes their carrier.
That's true, almost no one does, except those that use Ting.
Ting is a new MVNO running on the Sprint network with only an online presence so they have very little overhead. If you want an honest cell phone provider that bills for what you use usage, has no overage penalties, doesn't have any contracts whatsoever, lets you add and remove devices on the fly, and will typically cut your cell phone bill in half; then look no further.
Ting is delivering what the rest of the market will be forced to provide in time, they're just ahead of the game.
The best part is you can just buy a decent cheap Sprint android phone off ebay for around $100 and be off and running. You can activate pretty much any Sprint android phone on Sprint with their BYOD (bring your own device) program.
Wake up and demand to be treated better from the cell phone providers. We finally have options now, let's exercise that privilege.
http://www.ting.com
I watched the following happen. T-mobile launched "pay per use" web service and were putting the service on customers' phones without notice. All phones (like any other computer) is going to try and use a network connection if it has one. Customers with flip phones would call in and have a $10.00 data bill. It was discouraged to credit the money back.
It was a _requirement_ of your job to push features to customers EVERY time they called in and your metrics were based on whether or not you sold them anything. I'm sure lots of the "top sellers" were adding features onto people's accounts without authorization from the customer.
Here's the best part : If you call in and ask for a manager, your'e given the run around. If you ask to have the call pulled (since they are all supposed to be recorded), expect to wait at least two weeks and most of the time you won't get a call back ever.
Want to cancel your account? Fine. You will be credited NOTHING and will have to pay your contract termination fees. The entire call structure is built around NOT giving you access to a manager to talk to about the problem. The manager is in the background telling the rep your'e on the phone with to sell you EVEN MORE as you're complaining about being robbed. It is completely ridiculous.
First I would like to point out that customer service representatives are people. And as people they make mistakes. I worked in cellular customer service for over two years and probably made a few mistakes. The first representative probably got the 3030 service mixed up with another service. There are many of them and sometime it is difficult to keep them straight. Give the people a break as it is human error. I just love when the article says "spokesperson". It implies that the CSR is speaking for the entire company when all they are really trying to do is help the customer in the best way they know how. Why didn't the CSR call back? Maybe they were not on shift yet.
The recycled phone number issue is getting more and more common. Some people change their number much too often. The problem occurs because the separate system that provisions the horoscope messages may not be cleared when a phone number is cut of. The system may not even recognize the number is cut off and continue to send messages. The sender does not care because they do not get charged for the messages. The issue is when a new account gets attached to the number and the number is still subscribed to old services. As for the horoscope being the correct one there are two possibilities. First that pure chance may have hit. There is a 1 in 12 chance of having the same sign as the previous owner. Another option is that there may be a query into the T-Mobile system that shows the horoscope system the birth-date of the owner of the phone.
Remember Hanlon's razor; "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
CSR's can be pretty stupid at times. I know I have had to fix quite a few stupid mistakes.
I used to work for one of these premium sms 'services'. You could also just call it exploiting people. I was the loser who wrote the texts (9ct p/sms).
It's just an online form where anybody can enter a telephone number. After that or after sending the first text yourselve, you will get lots of texts untill you send a special code to stop your subscription. Each text will cost you, and they will keep on going. Often the people are too stupid or too ashamed to get help from a lawyer etc.
I'm not trying to blame anyone else for my misdeeds, but I can certainly tell you these companies are in on this. Even if T-Mobile didn't also turn out to be the owner of the premium sms number, they get A LOT of their income from people with >$1000 dollar bills. They know it is hard for them to stop the subscriptions, but the profit is too big. They will never let this business collapse.
Bell in Canada is currently in a class action lawsuit over charging 911 service access fees to subscribers in the North West Territories. 911 service is only available in Whitehorse, Yukon north of 60 in Canada. Not a single community in NWT including Yellowknife has 911 service yet Bell charged their customers every month for 911 access. The lawsuit already includes 5500 subscribers and Bell's customer base is about 20 000.
I can't think of a better example of ripping off your customers with fees.
As seen in Drew Carey Show, a fee for multiple fees. They get away with it because they can... People don't complain enough, laws don't apply the same for corporations and individuals, and most of all, people just don't seem to care enough to put their foot down... I know I do, but most people don't. I try to shop at mom and pop shops, but most people will try to save a dime and go to walmart
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
About a month after we got 2 new phones and I had to extend our contracts (yes they do still have them) I noticed a 9.99 premium feature charge on my bill. I asked what it was they said like a trivia challenge game or daily horoscope. I told them to remove it and they did and refunded the 9.99 (refunded via credit on a future bill). Never signed up for it, never texted any codes or responded to any unknown text messages.