Heather tells Consumerist that has AOL Instant Messenger installed on her smartphone, but doesn’t really use it. Lately, she’s left the program running more often, and made an alarming discovery: she was charged for 800 text messages, even though she didn’t send 800 text messages. The culprit? AIM, of course. Each IM to and from her phone was charged as a text message.
I feel like I’m reasonably savvy when it comes to my phone, but I am in a pickle where I’m getting charged for messages I had no idea were text messages.
I have AIM on my T-mobile Android phone and have used it from time to time. Once I set it up (years ago!), it opens automatically when I restart my phone. This was never a problem, I’d turn AIM off (because of the annoying messages I would get regarding chats I had already read on my computer) but with my phone battery getting less and less powerful and my phone shutting off more between charges, AIM has been on more than it’s been off.
So when I logged into my account to update my credit card info and saw that I had 800+ texts on my 400 text a month plan I was shocked! Turns out AIM messages count as text messages? There is no paid service warning when it automatically starts, the messages do not appear in my text message folder, they are separate. I had no idea!
I am on auto pay, and each month my bill is about the same amount given a little bit here and there which I don’t fret so I don’t pour over my bill to see what’s up. I also don’t get a paper bill, so it’s just an email. I had no reason to look and see that these messages have been occurring and counting towards my limit for months since I wasn’t going over my limit or if I did it was by hardly anything and I thought it was just 411 usage charges.
I have called customer service and they won’t credit me the $80, instead they want me to switch plans to cover it. I feel like if something is a paid service it should be made VERY obvious at the outset. Am I drunk here or does this just seem wrong? I’ve been with them for almost 5 years!
What do you think, Hive Mind? Does it seem logical to you that an Internet service would gobble up your text message allotment?
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Here is the deal with all carrier subsidized phones…
They modify them heavily and put on their own crapware.
ATT – The Captivate, the latest and greatest Android phone they currently have (Also known as the Galaxy S by Samsung), has a crapton of preinstalled ATT crap, ATT Radio, ATT TV, bunch of other things, they are all pay for services, none of them are free. Yes, their are market alternatives that are much easier to use and free, but thats not what ATT is trying to do, they are trying to trick people into using revenue generating services.
Lets look at Verizon (I have not used them in years and years, so this may not be valid anymore). They used to gimp all their phones (research the old Samsung SGH-700 I think was the model, disabled bluetooth except for headset.. like the iphone…), so that you had to use their revenue generating services to get things like photos and videos off the phone, they completely disabled the ability to transfer the data via usb or bluetooth..
Sprint did the same for a long time.
Assume anything the carrier has preinstalled on your device, as something that will cost you, its not done by accident, and they try really hard to bury the costs in fine print so people do not notice it…
The AIM app does not use any text message allowance. I’m using it on a deactivated iPhone.
That’s ridiculous, that should definitely be data. I can understand if it was a dumbphone, it might use texts instead of data, but on andorid, it should definitely be data and there’s no reason T-Mobile should even know how many messages were sent through any app.
I know with Verizon it says somewhere that AOL IM uses text messages to send and recieve messages.
did you know that when you download an android program it tells you all the services it accesses? It even has a separate section from privacy concerns where it warns you what services that may cost you money to use. I am sorry I have no sympathy for your choice to not read warnings provided to you,
My AIM/Yahoo/MSN application running on my enV Touch when you initially start it for the first time CLEARLY suggests that you subscribe to a text messaging bundle if you intend on using the service since it uses the text messaging services. So, I’m pretty sure that any other phone would have that warning as well.
I had this problem way back in the day when I got my first phone and discovered the magic of mobile IM. Turned out it was just magically sucking money out of my parent’s wallet.
These days, it depends on which phone you’re using, but I know if it’s not a smartphone with a data plan, all those IM messages are charged just like texts. If you can live without geting AIM on your phone, remove the AIM mobile option (you can probably do this at aol.com or via an official AIM app on your computer) ASAP. If they don’t have your number anymore, they can’t text and charge you.
Friends Don’t Let Friends Use AIM
I bought a verizon prepaid phone that charges me per day used and per call, including text messages. I soon found myself getting 4-5 text messages per day from spammers selling auto warranties and such. I went to the local verizon office and was told the only way to stop it was to block all texting. I did this and was fine until my contract expired, and verizon sent me a text message to warn me. hmmm.
I’m a little confused by this post. Laura’s quote says, “Heather tells Consumerist that has AOL Instant Messenger installed on her smartphone, but doesn’t really use it.” But apparently she DOES use it. Also, how long had Heather been using AIM? She just now figured out she’s being charged for texts? Not to blame the OP, but I’m just confused about some of the wording here and exactly what was going on.
As I recall from my T-Mobile Android phone days, the minute you start up this app for the first time, it TELLS you that it’s going to use text messages in place of AIM messages (it’s just a shitty T-Mobile app, that’s all). Now, if this person is like most (hell, nearly all) users, they just went ahead and clicked “OK” on this warning without even reading it… which explains the situation.