Senators Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and Bill Nelson, D-Florida, have introduced the m-SPAM Act, which would update the CAN-SPAM law to include text message spam. “The m-SPAM Act would explicitly bar marketers from sending text messages to any mobile number in the national Do-Not-Call registry maintained by the FTC,” reports InternetNews.
cellphones
The $1,821.97 Blackberry Bill
By 4.3.09
Maybe things are different in your house but in PJ’s it’s rather disconcerting to receive a bill for $1,821.91 for the wife’s Blackberry. U.S. Cellular says that she used 150mb of data and now must pay the price. PJ’s wife has no idea what she might have done that would’ve been that large, and US Cellular can’t tell her either. They just want their monies.
Why Is Nokia Charging Customers More Than The Invoice Amount?
By 3.31.09
Nokia has already had a few problems rolling out its new touchscreen 5800 XpressMusic phone, including earpieces that go bad in humid weather and firmmware that wouldn’t work on certain big-city 3G networks on the US model, but now they’re screwing around with something serious: customers’ money.
AT&T Supervisor Takes Back Refund Offer Because You Dared To Question Her
By 3.31.09
Claire was told the wrong thing by an AT&T Wireless rep regarding international long distance, but when she called back to sort things out, she came up against the Nurse Ratched of the AT&T call center—a woman who refused to give in, or offer any help at all. In fact, when Claire finally admitted defeat and said she’d accept the credit that had been offered to her, the supervisor refused. Apparently Claire only had one chance to accept that and since she said no, it was off the table.
AT&T Might Charge You For "Free" Mobile-To-Mobile Calls Unless You Notice
By 3.24.09
Jeff canceled one of the two lines on his AT&T Mobility family plan, and on his next bill he noticed the remaining line had been charged for mobile-to-mobile calls on the AT&T network—even though those minutes are supposed to be free.
iPhone To Be Sold Contract Free, But Costs A Fortune And Still Ties You To AT&T
By 3.20.09
AT&T has announced that starting next week, it will sell the iPhone 3G to current AT&T customers sans 2-year contract, possibly in an attempt to move inventory. Unfortunately, the conditions of the sale are such that it’s not worth it unless you’re determined to own a brand new, out-of-warranty (i.e. jailbroken) iPhone 3G that you intend to use on another network. (Note: our readers point out that even that route is far cheaper if you buy with contract and pay the ETF.) Otherwise, you’ll still be locked to AT&T and you’ll still have to buy the more expensive smartphone data plan, which doesn’t include text messaging. For no-contract bragging rights, you’ll have to pay $600 or $700 depending on the model.
Give Robocallers A Silent Ringtone And A Funny Name
By 3.16.09
You know those car warranty robocallers calling your cellphone? Of course you do, you hate them. This how reader Eyebrow McGee deals with them, and gets to have a little laugh at the same time:
Sprint Lies To FCC About Ripping Off Consumer Reporter
By 3.13.09
Dan Hesse should be ashamed. Ripping off a consumer reporter and then lying to the FCC about it? Bad idea. Here’s what Sprint did to The Red Tape Chronicles reporter Bob Sullivan…
Kid Racks Up 14,528 Text Messages On Parent's Plan
By 3.12.09
She must have calluses on her thumbs. Teenager Reina Hardesty racked up 14,528 text messages on her parent’s AT&T bill last month. She say’s she basically just texting back and forth with four of her friends all day long. Thanks goodness for unlimited text-messaging plans, otherwise it would have cost $2,905.60. Guess for a teenage text insurance policy, $30 is worth it. Reina’s parents have since set a limit of no texting after dinner. Good luck enforcing that.
How To Make Sure You're Not Paying $3.02 Per Minute For Cellular Service
By 3.10.09
As we noted yesterday, the average cellphone user is paying at least fifty cents to one dollar per minute because they’re only using 32% of their minutes. To make sure you’re on the plan with the best value, services like BillShrink and MyValidas can help you analyze your cellphone bill and see which plan you should switch to based on your actual minutes used.
Are You Actually Paying More Than $3 A Minute To Use Your Cellphone?
By 3.9.09
The LA Times brings up an interesting point. You may think you are getting each cellphone minute for about $0.10… but are you really? Or are you paying for more minutes than you use?
Who The Hell Are These People Calling My Cellphone About A Car Warranty?
By 3.5.09
We’ve been getting a lot of emails from people saying that a company is using a robocaller to call their cellphones and pretend that their car warranty is expiring. Too bad that some of these readers don’t even have a car. Has happened to you? Do you know who is behind it?
Citibank Launches iPhone Version Of Mobile App
By 3.4.09
Okay, all you iPhone dorks, Citi’s just released an easy way for you to keep track of your account balances while you’re running around pinching things bigger and smaller with your heavily patented gestures. Don’t worry, ugly phone owners, they’ve got other mobile versions too.
T-Mobile Customers Can Take Advantage Of Cheaper Plans Starting Today
By 3.2.09
The rumor was true—T-Mobile has started offering cheaper unlimited voice plans to existing customers. Matthew wrote to us, “The TMO loyalty plans are showing up on the site as of today…we just moved to the Unlimited Loyalty Family Plan at $89.99, which is $10 cheaper than the 2000 minute Family Plan we’d been on.”
Smart Television Alliance Asks "Feature Films For Families" To Stop Using Its Name
By 2.27.09
Feature Films For Families—the company that’s been phone-spamming random people over the past few weeks—follows no man’s law! The nonprofit Smart Television Alliance, which works to educate parents on how to improve the television experience for kids*, discovered that the company was using its name without permission.
Verizon Wireless Sues "Velveteen Rabbit" Telemarketers
By 2.26.09
Hooray for Verizon Wireless! Wait, what? The cellular carrier has just filed a lawsuit against Feature Films For Families for illegally telemarketing. Specifically, they’re accusing the company of using an auto-dialer to cold call hundreds of thousands of Verizon Wireless customers earlier this month, which is illegal according to NJ state laws (where the suit was filed) and the Federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act.
Verizon Wireless Accused Of Wrongly Billing NY Customers State Tax
By 2.25.09
A class action lawsuit has been filed against Verizon Wireless accusing it of passing directly to customers a “metropolitan commuter transportation district” tax that the company was actually supposed to pay. Albert Levy, who filed the lawsuit, points out that Sprint has never charged the tax to customers. Verizon Wireless calls the accusation “silly,” and says they’re billing it correctly. Perhaps not surprisingly, the actual wording of the tax law leaves the matter up in the air.
