Do you have a cell phone? Do you read the bill carefully? I comb through the technology bills pretty carefully and have historically found overcharges - services we didn't sign-up for, equipment we didn't have.
On our latest family cell phone bill I discovered a charge for $9.99 from "Predicto". I asked Anne about it and she said, "I have been seeing some spam text messages with that name. I just delete them." So I called Verizon. The operator claimed that the only way to get onto the Predicto list was to text them from the target cell phone. She then agreed to reverse the change, "Just this one time," while I investigated more deeply.
A little digging on the Internet uncovered a number of complaints from people who have been receiving these charges without previous action on their part. One woman even documented how she had been in the hospital, unconscious, when she had supposedly requested the service. The company does have a method for turning off the "service" - the user needs to send a text message to 654654 with the text STOP - this should stop the billing and the spam. Watch your phone bills!
David and Anne Ball
copyright © 1997-2008
