Last week one of the attorneys in my office told me that he had found two $9.99 charges on his phone bill from some company he had never used. After some minimal digging he learned that these charges were from a company that sends text messages to cell phones advising them to type back “stop” if they don’t want to subscribe to their service. Of course he did what any person would do when receiving a random text message from an apparent scam company, he ignored it. Well according to his cell phone company by not typing “stop” he accepted their so called services at a charge of $9.99 a month.
According to this article, some phone companies have actually stopped allowing these type of bogus charges:
Luckily for my partner he contacted the phone company immediately and contested the charges and was able to have them removed. Unfortunately most cell phone customers aren’t this lucky. Apparently this scam has become so widespread it has caused class action lawsuits against both the phone companies and the actual companies that send out these bogus text messages. I would urge everyone to carefully review their phone bill and when you see a charge that you don’t understand or recognize immediately contact the phone company and contest the charge. Both the phone company and these bogus companies are hoping that you don’t call the phone company over ten dollars and that you will simply accept the charge. Do not let yourself become a victim of such a scam and take the time to review your bill and make sure that you are only being charged for the services that you have actually purchased.
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