Why can’t people set up filters to turn off unwanted spam text messages, especially when they’re sent by unknown parties to a phone number that’s never been (knowingly) listed by the owner? Maybe it’s because Verizon gets to charge you 20 cents per message, suggests this reader who can’t figure out why her grandfather’s mobile number suddenly became a spam magnet after switching to a new Verizon phone.
Dear Consumerist,
My family and I wanted to relay a recent experience we had with the phone company Verizon. Over the last couple of months my grandfather’s phone started receiving e-mail and web-based spam text messages. His phone is part of our family’s plan, and he never put his phone number on the internet (for this reason) nor does he know how to send or receive text messages. Mind you this was a brand new phone with the same number, which had not received any sort of messages like these before the new phone. Just for clarification, he did not release his number before the new phone either.
We discovered on our phone bill that we were being charged for these spam text message at $.20 a text (up from the $.10 price just a few months ago). My mother spent several hours on separate days inquiring on how to turn off just the computer generated text messages. Even as the primary on the account, she was unable to turn them off. The salesmen in a local Verizon store stated that you could only turn off ALL text messages, not just web-based ones, which she knew to be untrue. She contacted the customer service at 611 and spent the many hours with tech support trying to accomplish this task. 611 was only able to help my mother when she had the phone in question on hand after registering an online account (at vtext.com) with Verizon for that specific phone (we had to make a new account for each phone) and provided the last four digits of her social security number. We had to repeat this process for each phone, which meant that phones had to travel from over an hour away so that we could do this for my grandfather’s and grandmother’s phones.
Our concern here is that Verizon is making big money off spam and this feature is nearly impossible to disable, even on the master account. The customer service has only occasionally reversed these charges. Somebody needs to step in (perhaps the FCC) and force Verizon to make disabling this feature far easier—like offering an uncomplicated, free option to opt out.
Long story short, Verizon should not be allowed to make money off spam.
Sincerely,
A frustrated Verizon customer
(Note: this is the name my mother provided when talking with customer support)
We agree, and we think it would be fairly easy (but less profitable, which is why it won’t happen) to implement a policy that allows CSRs to automatically credit, no-questions-asked, any charges for text messages sent by companies, known spam IP addresses, or unlisted numbers. The number of jerks who would game the policy to get a few free text messages each month would be far outweighed by the goodwill earned from customers who will no longer feel Verizon’s taking advantage of them with sms spam.
(Photo: *nomad*)
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Oddly enough, I didn’t have these problems when I had a text message issue. I started getting these confirmation messages that I’d been signed up for one of those psychic text #s or something. When I called Verizon, they said that yeah, I’d somehow been subscribed to some service and they explained how to cancel it and credited my account for the texts.
Then they offered to disable text messages entirely on my account. Granted that may not be available on my new phone (the unlimited data plan), but maybe it’s who you get sent to on the customer service side.
The best way to combat unwanted SMS SPAM is to file a complaint with all of
these organizations:
. FCC (http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/complaints.html)
. CSCA (http://www.usshortcodes.com/csc_support.html)
. MMA (http://mmaglobal.com/modules/article/view.article.php/1170)
If you unknowingly opted into a short code program by texting a keyword to a
certain phone number, you should be able to reply to any message received
from that phone number with the word STOP. This should end all unwanted
messages if that company is running a legal and legitimate short code
program. Otherwise, you should file a complaint with the organizations
above and make sure to include the phone number the unwanted messages are
coming from.
Regards,
Mr. Terry Harrison
(ph) 512-965-2394
(fx) 512-532-7750
(im) sumotext512
terry@sumotext.com
http://www.79704.mobi/?SUMOTXT512
———————————————————
Text SUMOTXT512 to 79704 for more details!
The original article is wrong, or misleading at best. (such is the trend at Consumerist lately)
1) Verizon will allow you to block all premium services. Admittedly, it’s only been a couple months.
2) They have always had the ability to block ALL text messages.
We can debate the issue of free incoming texts, but that is an entirely different topic. While perhaps not as thorough as you’d like, VZW does allow a couple ways to ensure you aren’t charged more than you’d like for unwanted texts.
I found out 2 months ago when the second line on my service was hit with the 9.99 fee. I had to speak to a couple people, and of course told I had to take it up with the company. When pressed for contacts at the company so I could file a suit in small claims court, VZW couldn’t provide anything. “So you mean to tell me you’re telling me I have to contact a company for a refund when you can’t even tell me who you paid?” Immediate credit and all premium texts were then blocked. Problem solved.
Show us your Verizon face!
Oh how I miss the days when CB radio was popular. There were no charges for incoming or outgoing messages!
@micasaessucasa:
Try 4am, every Thursday, from a canadian online pharmacy… Verizon thew their hands up and shrugged.
@tedyc03: I can assert that the main article Verizon’s policy, circa 2001, used to be that they would credit you back the SMS charge and block the offending party from sending you any more text messages.
Late in 2006, when I began receiving unsolicited text messages from the aforementioned Canadian pharmacy, at four in the morning, I called Verizon and was told that the only option was to block them by explicitly listing their number or email in one of the 20 blacklist spaces in the online account management and that they would not credit me back the received spam text messages or investigate the matter. Unfortunately, as the text messages came from ’000-000-0000′, there was no way to block them, as the Vtext site rejected that as an invalid phone number.
When I called Verizon back, the CSR confirmed that 000-000-0000 was the number of record on the spam text and that the Vtext website rejected any attempts to blacklist that number. He said they would investigate and the messages stopped for a few months.
In mid-2007, they started again, so I called *611 once more. The CSR gave me the same dead-end answers, and I told her that I’d already tried those solutions. She offered that the only other solution was to disable text messaging for my account and then proceeded to do so without my permission. When she said ‘oops’ and told me what happened, she went on to explain that she could not restore my previous text message plan (500 text/pix/vid for $5.00) because Verizon no longer offered that package, but that I could get the same features back for a lot more money.
Suffice it to say, within a week, I had purchased an iPhone and cancelled my Verizon account after more than 8 years of being a customer in good standing.
My mom had a similar thing happen to her, she told the CSR. She asked them who the customer was and got a credit and had txt messaging turned off.
I used to be with Nextel (before the merger) and had a similar problem. I’d get text messages on my phone from random people I didn’t know, and went into the Nextel office to see about getting text messaging turned off (I never used it anyway). They told me…and this is rich…that if I turned off text messaging then I’d also lose voicemail.
Excuse me?!
Needles to day, I promptly dumped Nextel and went somewhere else.
On our Verizon phones we turned off all the features except for what we use the phones for: voice communication. At 41 I have NO interest in texting or learning how to text; same with my wife.
We’re the kind of customers Verizon loves/hates. We have no extra features on our phones and never go over our allowed minutes…but we pay our bill on time every month.
i’m on verizon and i have NEVER had one single spam txt. Maybe it’s because I’m on a business account?
way to bash people – this is supposed to be a CONSUMERIST site, not a shill site or a flame site.
on point: why should anyone have to either a) tolerate SPAM + bs “service” OR b) go textless? some of us actually USE the text feature to keep family schedules running smoothly.
@kmn842: Some plans are different….
Sounds like some people had a bad CSR or two. I have Verizon and encountered this issue. First of all, it’s a 3rd party spamming, not Verizon. We all have email addresses attached to our cell phones, and spammers just go through and plug in your phone number into the email format and send off a bunch of spam, just like you get in your regular email box. Yes, Verizon stands to make money off of this if people have to pay for texts, but I have never had a problem getting the $.20 or $.40 credited to an account. Also, it is fairly easy to disable this feature without having to call anyone. If you sign up for Verizon’s online account management, you can go into your texting preferences and block texts from the web, from email and you can block about 15 or 20 individual numbers or email addresses.
I switched my number because I started getting death threats from some guy saying I stole his phone. Verizon was fine about switching that cause I had already called the police, but the same day, before I had given that number out to anyone I got a text message advertising a wild party. I called the number it came from and gave them hell. I just got another one a few minutes ago.
I can hear the CSR after they release their new phones based on the 700MHz spectrum:
Due to FCC regulations on the 700MHz, we cannot block the spam that we are sending you. Any and all devices that can connect to the network without damaging it has to be allowed on.
We will of course, still take your money for it.
I didn’t get totally nailed with spam like the letter described, but after getting a couple I called Verizon and the rep actually suggested I pay for unlimited texting every month to avoid excessive charges.
Then he told me I wasn’t authorized to view the account (in my dad’s name) despite the fact that we’ve called five or six times over the course of two months to repeatedly authorize my name to make changes (only had to do it once for our Roadrunner internet). Another rep asked me very gently, ‘Could you put daddy on the phone, sweetie?’ after mentioning that I was the daughter of the ‘Craig’ listed on the account. I’m almost 20, but maybe I sound like an eight year-old over the phone or something.
If you’re a CSR, don’t make assumptions about who you’re talking to over the phone, please. Getting service problems solved over the phone is hard enough these days without involving a social faux pas.
First of all, the concept of me having to pay for incoming text messages is ridiculous by itself. And now reading this just makes me angry as us as customers are being taken advantage of via spammers. How does verizon expect us to take slack for the spam messages we get. It not OUR fault we get them nor do we intend on even reading them!
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