Parent Pundit

Cell Phone Fraudulent Billing – You could be a target…

Like a good daughter, I went and got my 72-year old mother a cell phone. I would teach her how to use it, and she would always be able to call. I added her to our family plan with Sprint. Little did I know that she would soon be the victim of text messaging spam and that SHE WOULD BE CHARGED FOR THAT VERY SAME TEXT MESSAGING SPAM!

It all started out innocently enough. Sprint issued my mother a new telephone number. Soon after, she received a text message that went something like this:

SMS.ac Fact: It is estimated that on average, there are 61,000 people airborne over the USA at all times. True or False? Stop? Reply STOP FACT

I looked at this and immediately thought to myself,

• first there was fax spam,
• then there was email spam,
• now there is text messaging spam.

They must dial random numbers and see if people respond. I told my mother to ignore it because the absolute worst thing you can do is respond to email spam, especially unsolicited email spam, and this “sms.ac fact” appeared unsolicited on my mom’s phone.

My daughter was in the room and she said, “Mom, I already responded “STOP.”

I told her that proved my point, the messages had obviously not stopped.

What you know about email spam does not extend to text messaging spam as I soon found out after hours of phone calls.

She received some more text messages and I deleted the slew of them without looking at them. My mom couldn’t even use the phone to call my cell phone correctly; there was no way that these were responses to text messages that she sent. (This was confirmed by Sprint. My mother did not send text messages.)

Soon, she started receiving more text messages.  She told me it was very annoying to have the phone ring all the time and then see this SMS.ac.  It even rang in the early morning hours.   I finally had time to look into it and I found the following message buried in with other inane messages:

SMS.ac Account Update: you’ve spent $5 at a cost of .25 per msg. To modify your services please visit SMS.ac on the web.

What the heck was this? Another scam for me to put my personal information onto SMS.ac when we had never signed up to SMS.ac in the first place?

I then looked at our first bill, which had just arrived. I wasn’t happy. Here is a list of text messaging charges:

Notice a couple of things. It doesn’t say who the charges are from. Contrary to the SMS.ac text messages, it isn’t in increments of $5, and it isn’t subtotaled as a separate charge. It is mixed in with a credit for activating a new line.

So, after my handy math calculations, I was charged $15.19 and .56 cents of that was tax. But at the very least, I was charged $14.63 from someone for premium text messaging that my mom never used or signed up for.

I was soon on the phone with Sprint. First, I talked to one rep who said that sms.ac was a sister company (another rep told me that was untrue) and put me in touch with the Sprint fraud department. I have never in my life had a harder time getting through to a person because not ONE OF THE OPTIONS FIT MY CASE! Furthermore, there was no way to get to a person; everything was electronic.

Needless to say, I wasn’t in a very good mood after that, and the second rep that I called hung up on me. She was clueless when I tried to tell her that I shouldn’t have to pay for these fees, and when I tried to tell her that I shouldn’t pay the Sprint fees for text messaging on top of the sms.ac fees that had been fraudulently charged, she couldn’t grasp what I was trying to say.

On the third or fourth rep, I finally got the Sprint fees rescinded, but I had to go through SMS.ac itself to get the other fees back. Sprint would shut off my phone if I withheld the text messaging fees.

Furthermore, it was impossible for me to get a complete list of what SMS.ac charged me from Sprint or WHAT THEY WERE PLANNING TO CHARGE ME NEXT MONTH.

I was livid.

I turned off ALL text messaging functionality on my mom’s phone because of this. However, it turns out, in a disaster, the only thing that does work is text messaging. My choice: hours of billing problems because of text messaging versus the possibility of a disaster where text messaging will be needed. As a customer, I shouldn’t have to make this choice. The final pebble on the scale was that my mom probably wouldn’t be able to use the text messaging, even in a disaster, but I could be wrong. And it will take years for this scamming to be fixed.

I finally got in touch with SMS.ac. I was in the process of leaving a message and telling them that I was going to write this whole sordid mess on my blog when someone picked up.

They tried to explain the business model, and I still don’t get it, and frankly, I wasn’t interested in exploring their site to find out more.

I told them my mom was either the victim of identity theft or the phone hadn’t been “cleared” when they reissued the number to my mother. They asked me if I knew of this specific person and mentioned a name. I said that I had never heard of her, and that I had just activated the phone for my mother, and if this billing had been going on for a while, then the person who was still using this service from the web site hadn't shut the service off. I told them that I was going to withhold the funds from Sprint, and they reiterated what Sprint said. They said they would refund the money and they sent me a refund form via email when I gave them my email address.

Well, remember the Sprint fraud division telephone tree hell? We now have the SMS.ac email form hell.

First, the form, issued to username luckygurl1987, who I have never heard of but who was obviously the culprit in this mess as the original signee onto the account, said that you would be only refunded a maximum of 50 text messages. I thought that this was just a form and wouldn’t apply in my case. Boy was I wrong  -- at least for now.

Second, while they did have a pulldown for phone number reissued so they must have had this problem in the past, they only allowed for number of text messages received. I had deleted slews of text messages unread. I had no idea how many text messages I had received and they didn’t have any text box to put in additional comments. So I said 100 messages thinking that should cover any new messages that I hadn’t been billed yet, and I followed up with an email that said:

Look, I don't know what you billed Sprint. The  Refund Case Number is:xxxxxx. My 72-year old mother's phone was activated on June 17. ALL charges from June 17 onward should be credited to the account.

You should also have a text input field in the refund request box that lets people put in when their phone was activated so you can figure out what was owed. It is impossible for customers to figure that out.

I had the refund go to my husband's paypal; account, xxxxxx@xxxxx.net. I'll be checking it.

Katherine Prouty

This was the emailed response from sms.ac

Hello,

Thanks for contacting us.  At SMS.ac, customer service is our passion so we love hearing from our customers.

In addition to offering daily FREE Messages to send from the SMS.ac website to a mobile phone, SMS.ac offers premium services such as Mobile Friends Network Notifications, smsChannels, smsClubs, Blind Date, and smsRewards Notifications.  Premium services are not part of our free service.

During registration, users are asked to read the Terms and Conditions.  One cannot continue with registration without agreeing that they have in fact read the Terms and Conditions.  This agreement is as follows:

I realize that I am joining a community of mobile phone users. I agree to the T&C's below and service info on the right, especially sections titled “How  much does it cost” and “New and modified functionality”. It contains important information regarding messages from community members that can include charges on your mobile phone account. Read it!

If members wish to only use their daily FREE messages and do not want to receive premium messages, which they may be charged for, they can log into their account and opt-out of receiving premium messages at any time.

SMS.ac also provides a mobile command at the end of each premium message, which the user can use to discontinue that type of message.  SMS.ac customer support is available 24 hours per day, seven (7) days per week, via telephone, live chat, and e-mail.

Thanks again for contacting us.  We hope you consider SMS.ac the next time you are looking for high quality mobile data services.

 
We value your opinion!  Please take a moment to tell us how we’re doing. Click Here!
Warm regards,

Yi-Chen Jenny Ho
Customer Support Specialist
SMS.ac
www.sms.ac
jho@corp.sms.ac
Office: +1 (619) 696-1300

So, now SMS.ac is telling me that my mother signed up for this service and actually signed the terms and conditions!   This is, of course, not true.  My mother never signed up for anything to do with her new phone.

They issued a paypal credit of $13, which was received, and Paypal got their .56 cents in fees, so they actually did only refund 50 text messages. So, right now, trying to get this straight,

I am out:

• $14.63 in sms.ac fees for premium text messages;
• .56 cents in taxes on those same fees (which I will never get back because the refund came through Paypal)
• total $15.19

Received back

• $13 minus 56 cents in paypal fees.

So my net loss so far is $2.75 IF Sprint actually issued me a credit and I’m not billed anything else from SMS.ac on next month’s bill.

And I am also out hours and hours of my time trying to fix something that was NONE of my or my mom’s doing.  My mother is less than pleased with her new phone because of the constant interruptions from these text messages which she kept receiving.

If you have kids or parents or you become a victim yourself, be prepared. They should have some form of “clearing” phone numbers of all previous obligations by date, or they shouldn’t be allowed to bill to those same phone numbers. Period.

I’m sending a copy of this to Sprint, sms.ac, my attorney general, and the Better Business Bureau. Please link to it often to let others know.

Update: Just spent another 45 minutes on the phone with a Sprint rep on a bad connection from India because I sent a link to this post to Sprint since they only allow 1200 characters. The Sprint rep had me verbally go over everything again because he couldn't click the link to read this full explanation of what went wrong. He ALSO THOUGHT THAT SOMEONE HAD SIGNED UP FOR THE SERVICE USING MY MOTHER'S PHONE!

Not only does the customer have to figure things out, but the customer has to tell Sprint how to debug it. I finally got so fed up I told him to trace the number and LOOK AT THE PREVIOUS PERSON'S BILL to see if they had these premium text messaging charges. Finally the rep woke up and said he would investigate and the scenario that I described might be a possibility. It turns out there were more charges on my next month's bill that I haven't seen yet. This is just a nightmare.

Having a Teenager = Washing a Cell Phone: What to Do?

Yes, it happened. My daughter left her cell phone in her pocket and my husband washed it in the washing machine. It actually made it into the dryer but the initial thud was quickly investigated and the cell phone found.

My husband, being an engineer, was quick on the uptake and quickly took the battery off and did NOT turn on the phone to see if it worked. He dried off the battery and the phone, left it in the sun in a dry place (our house is very drive because the heat is on) and let it sit for 24 hours before attempting to turn it on. Amazingly, the cell phone worked briefly with the same battery, just enough for us to see that the data was still intact. He then charged the battery.

After the charge, we could see a little water behind the screen, but within a day that cleared up too. The phone works just fine now!

There are some factors that might have helped in this situation. First, the phone was off when it went into the washing machine. Second, it is a flip phone so it might be more protected. Third, it doesn't have any fancy cameras or anything in it. It is a Samsung A660 model. I also disabled the Internet option simply because it is just too much temptation for her.

Anyhow, I have a suggestion for Consumer Reports. At the end of their evaluation of cell phones, they should give it the washing machine test. Insurance policies are expensive, and if there is a chance that a phone can come out of the process and still be usable, that is a big selling point for parents! (By doing a Google search, this seems to happen quite a bit, and not just with teenagers.)

If you have washed your cellphone, please let me know! Also let me know the outcome... did the phone work? I also found a cellphone cleaning/drying service out there. If you have used that service, I'd love to know! Thankfully, we didn't have to try it.

Do Your Kids Use the Internet? Parents be Warned.

If you have teenage children who regularly use the computer to connect to the Internet, you should read this post. If you know of other parents who don't know much about computers, please send them the link.

I have been online before the Internet was popular. There is very little that my kids can get past me in regards to the computer, but even I was caught unawares.

I, like a lot of other parents, regularly look over the kid's shoulder when they are online to see what is going on. I check their "buddy lists" in AOL instant messenger (AIM) to make sure that I know all of the kids on it.  I read some of the messages that they get and they send. I tell you, "IMspeak" or chat abbreviations, the practice of using abbreviations rather than full words has really matured since I was a regular user. This has developed because most kids are not great typists, but more on that in another post.

Some examples of chat abbreviations:

• POS = parent over shoulder
• LOL = laughing out loud (this is old)
• BBL = be back later (old)
• SUP = what's up
• :) = smile (turn the image on its side -- old)
• ;) = wink (again, turn the image on its side -- old)

Well, the stuff that my daughter says in her messages that I have seen is benign, but I found a couple of instances of "vulgar" words in my daughter's Instant Messenger profile, and I immediately took action. (A profile is a description that users can click on to learn more about that person. If you click on someone in their "buddy list" and then click on the "info" button below, you should be able to see the profile.)

First, I asked her about how this got there. I then told her that what was in her profile was not private, it is very public. She told me that kids say "way worse" in school, and that she doesn't do that in school. I tried to explain the difference between a spoken conversation (gone immediately and only able to be heard by the people present) and a profile, a mechanism that declares who you are even when you aren't present.  I told her that,

"this profile gives a picture of you for all the world to see, including other parents, including the parents of the boy that you have a crush on. Everything you write should be able to be spoken out loud in your classroom in front of your teachers and your peers without embarrassment."

I then proceeded to look at all of her friends' profiles to demonstrate this fact.

Next step was to have her go over her profile and tell me what was inappropriate. She could very easily do that and she quickly edited the content. We have two computers in the house, so she had to edit the content on both computers because the profile actually resides on each computer. So if you happen to look at your child's profile and he or she changes it, it must be changed on all the computers that your child uses.

Through other programs, kids can easily make links in their profile to additional content on websites that they might be using like xanga or livejournal. One of her friends had two personal blog sites with jaw dropping content, including a picture and the name of her school. THIS IS DANGEROUS! These kids feel so safe typing away in  their home that they aren't practicing elementary online safety rules, and the parents don't know enough to check it out.

One of her close friends, a girl who frequently comes over and whose parents are not technically savvy, also had a few vulgar words. I called the girl up and told her what I had seen as well. She changed it.

Now, how do you find out what is in your child's profile? Next time they are on the computer, ask them to see it. If they say it is private, tell them that it isn't, anyone can see it. This is their first mistake -- thinking that it is private. Ask them if they use xanga, livejournal or another personal journal or blog site. Ask to see it. Again, if they say it is private, explain that this isn't a private diary locked in a room, this is available for the world to see, including other parents.

If you want to double check, simply use the "history" function in your browser. If you use Internet Explorer, then it is the little sundial icon. The sites that have been visited on the computer should then be visible. Click a couple of the links. Or, you could go to Google and type in site:www.xanga.com  and then a list of search words:

site:www.xanga.com  (your town)

site:www.livejournal.com (your town)

Then, depending on how unique your town's name is, you can add other things like first name, interests, etc. to narrow the list.

Now, in xanga, it may be difficult to see the actual sites. Livejournal is easier. When you get a result in Livejournal based on the town input, you should go to a url that has a lot of random information about that user, but it doesn't have the actual postings of that user. To see the postings, you have to change the url in the address box.

The url convention is http://www.livejournal.com/users/PersonsUserName (don't click this.) This just means if you do a search on your hometown and the first name and something comes up in livejournal and you want to see the posts and not just the user information, then you just change the url in the address bar from

http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=PersonsUserName&mode=full to the following url: http://www.livejournal.com/users/PersonsUserName

(you take out userinfo.bml?, change user to users, take out the = sign, make users plural, put in a slash, and take out &mode=full) and you will get the page with the posts. The PersonsUserName is whatever comes up in the address that you click. This will change depending on whose livejournal you are seeing on the screen.

If something is deleted, then you can go back to the Google search page and click the "cached" link next to the entry. This cached link shows that the content is still on Google's computers so you can access it, even though it might technically be deleted at the original location.

Anyhow, even if you just take a look at some of the personal journals, I think it will open up your eyes. It did mine.

If you find out something new because of this post, please let me know. If you found something disturbing, I'd love to know how you handled it.

My daughter asked me why I was always prying into her life now... I told her that she would make mistakes, but my job as a parent was to teach her to weigh the short and long term; teenagers often only focus on the short term.