I have a unlimited texting plan but was charged $9.99 for one (1) Premium Message. What is a Premium Message? I have no clue as to what that might be.........
Read here. If you or anyone on the account didn't sign up for anything then you were scammed. If you are getting text messages from some site text stop. You can have verizon put a block on premium text messaging and they should be able to tell you who it's from then you can find their website and contact them to get it stopped that way. A lot of times you have to watch online if something is free like I wanted to watch parts of a TV series I missed and had to answer some questions and the answers were texted to me and in fine print I had to agree to premium text messaging but I knew this and used the service for one month and was charged the $9.99 then cancled. Mary
Premium messaging is a scam allowed by Verizon as they get a cut of the proceeds for doing the billing. Cal the FCC and file a complaint, maybe if enough of us do they will stop this practice.
The last message is not true at all. It is not a scam by VZW, ATT, or any other Cell provider.
As for those who get a Premium text charge, understand, MANY facebook questionaires we all receive from friends, that if we have our Moble number in our Profile, even if not visible to anyone, the terms of the questionaires states you are agreeing to premium text charges.
I have a friend whose daughter saw the FREE RINGTONE ad on TV, got her tone not seeing the small light gray terms that streamed across the screen. and was being charged $9.99/month for a subscription to Ringtones. it is simple to sign up unknowingly to these sites. These sites are the scam, not the cell providers.
budone wrote: The last message is not true at all. It is not a scam by VZW, ATT, or any other Cell provider. As for those who get a Premium text charge, understand, MANY facebook questionaires we all receive from friends, that if we have our Moble number in our Profile, even if not visible to anyone, the terms of the questionaires states you are agreeing to premium text charges. I have a friend whose daughter saw the FREE RINGTONE ad on TV, got her tone not seeing the small light gray terms that streamed across the screen. and was being charged $9.99/month for a subscription to Ringtones. it is simple to sign up unknowingly to these sites. These sites are the scam, not the cell providers.
So true but people don't seem to realize this and blame the cell companies. We have to read everything good to know what we are getting into. I find it hard to believe the premium texts just appear out of the blue and people did not do anything to instigate it. Mary
Premium message charges do not just show up on a bill. As hard as it may be to believe, YOU of whoever has access of your phone does have to agree to the charges. It is not a scam, they are legit services, its just really tricky the way that you can sign up for them. Its technically not the companys fault because you dont read the fine print. And its deffinetly not Verizons fault cause you have a charge on your bill from a different company. Its called taking responsibility for your actions or looking further into your actions befor calling customer service screaming at them wondering why "THEY" put that charge on your bill. Yes it is shaddy but they are legit.
Bull. Who else thinks they have the right to let third parties make charges against my account without first talking to me personally to authorize it? How would this fly on your credit card? Your savings account? No, they have rules in place to refund you when you've been -defrauded- that way.
Are you cool with your electric bill coming with an additional charge because someone used your home address on a website to sign you up for a premium electric service that contains nothing more than the electric service you're already paying for? How about when you're driving through McDonald's; are you fine if someone with your license plate tells the cashier you gave them the go ahead to charge their chicken nuggets on you? McDonald's can just charge you a premium chicken nuggets fee? How many analogies do I have to go through? Even if you signed this bloke's petition on your way to the drive-thru and didn't realize there was a premium chicken nugget fee clause, have you been any less defrauded? Are you ok with Mc D's allowing that crap to fly? If you were ok with that you'd have people lined up at every drivethru in America holding clipboards and trying to flag you down. They'd be holding Java and Flash-based signs saying "Sign here to win 1,000,000 Dollars!" "Sign here to get your free drive-thru tones!"
The Service Provider is at fault for allowing third parties to charge your account without getting your express authorization, by voice, personally. Who else would you accept that from and say it's not their fault?
I advise that all readers that have been impacted by this snake oil B.S. refuse the charges and complain to the FCC because the service provider is at fault here. I don't care how long the charges go on before you first notice them, you've been defrauded. Small fortunes are being made defrauding people through a system that has no safeguards and the Service Provider is complicit by not instituting a very very simple policy: don't charge the customer for any services you're not the one providing.
abacadab wrote: Bull. Who else thinks they have the right to let third parties make charges against my account without first talking to me personally to authorize it? How would this fly on your credit card? Your savings account? No, they have rules in place to refund you when you've been -defrauded- that way. Are you cool with your electric bill coming with an additional charge because someone used your home address on a website to sign you up for a premium electric service that contains nothing more than the electric service you're already paying for? How about when you're driving through McDonald's; are you fine if someone with your license plate tells the cashier you gave them the go ahead to charge their chicken nuggets on you? McDonald's can just charge you a premium chicken nuggets fee? How many analogies do I have to go through? Even if you signed this bloke's petition on your way to the drive-thru and didn't realize there was a premium chicken nugget fee clause, have you been any less defrauded? Are you ok with Mc D's allowing that crap to fly? If you were ok with that you'd have people lined up at every drivethru in America holding clipboards and trying to flag you down. They'd be holding Java and Flash-based signs saying "Sign here to win 1,000,000 Dollars!" "Sign here to get your free drive-thru tones!" The Service Provider is at fault for allowing third parties to charge your account without getting your express authorization, by voice, personally. Who else would you accept that from and say it's not their fault? I advise that all readers that have been impacted by this snake oil B.S. refuse the charges and complain to the FCC because the service provider is at fault here. I don't care how long the charges go on before you first notice them, you've been defrauded. Small fortunes are being made defrauding people through a system that has no safeguards and the Service Provider is complicit by not instituting a very very simple policy: don't charge the customer for any services you're not the one providing.
So I assume that IF you ever order something online, THE MERCHANT THEN CALLS YOU TO GET YOUR AUTHORZATION, BY VOICE, PERSONALLY.
No? Weren't you just defrauded, then? How is this company to know that it was actually you? How do they know that it was your voice? I would report ALL of this fraudulent, if I were you.
With premium messaging, YOU DO GIVE AUTHORIZATION.
If you(or someone with access to your phone/number such as spouse/child/friend) don't want to inadvertantly give authorization, you can have premium messaging BLOCKED BY VERIZON so that you won't incur any of these charges.
The first day I got my cell phone, I got text messages from weird sources, those 5-digit ones. I didn't have an actual computer to go online, never went to any website other than gmail/hotmail, the next thing I knew, I kept getting 3-4 messages a day from this 5-digit source.
Because I had only limited text message plan, so I eventually called Verizon so they can stop this non-sense. When I get the bill, I get charged $12.87 for 13 premium messages in just 3 days.
Asked nicely for Verizon to reverse this charge, they directed me to some website that didn't work. Asked nicely again the next day they said I should call the number on that website for questions. I called and got nothing but voice mail, which I suspected I would never get a phone call back.
Furious, called Verizon again, complained about all this crap, the agent kept saying there are thousands of things cell phones could do, should Verizon block each and everyone of them or ask customers first? I told her fk yes, anything that charges extra outside of the plan.
I stopped the stupid thing before realizing it was called premium message, had only a $12.87 charge on my bill, imagined if I just ignored it and at the end of the month I get $500 charge from it, because god forbids that's my text message limit.
Eventually she agreed to reverse the $12.87 charge, which the two agents before said they were not allowed to do, so **bleep** **bleep** **bleep**.
Then she asked if I wanted to block Text pictures or Text videos, because you could get charged if they are too big, I asked what is too big, she said she didn't know. Of course she didn't. So I said yes, block that please.
Then she asked if I want to block all downloads from my cellphone. Why would I pay for unlimited data if I can't download apps? At least when I download, I click whatever the app costs or it's a free app. I don't get an app sent to me out of no where and get charged for it. Then she said, oh, then you should not put a block on it.
She then tried to go down the list of possible blocks, and realized there were none. So in total there are either two blocks, premium message and text pictures/videos, which Verizon sales could have spent 1min and told their customers in the first place, or she lied and there were other things and god knows what I will be charged in the future.
So much for customer service.
Actually, it's the SALES people, or better yet, people actually in charge at Verizon, why didn't they tell their employees to disclose this information to customers when they sign up for Verizon, to give customers a chance to say yes block premium message in the first place? I was never told about premium message. In fact I've never heard of it before I came to the States. So much for a free country too, so companies can scam you anyway they want, and your cell phone company only cares about how much profits they get.
If anyone believed that Verizon didn't get any kickbacks from these premium messaging scam companies, or legal premium messaging companies, you are just laugh-out ridiculous.
And don't believe when customer service says he/she has no power to reverse a charge, because by law the company can not charge you extra for things you did not order.
It's only because customers can't unite and organize efficiently, otherwise lets see what happens to Verizon stocks (if they have any) after a class action has been filed with penalties.
One more thing, this is why iPhone is better than an Android Phone.
We have our family plan, 1 iPhone and 1 Android, iPhone never received any text message out of nowhere, but the Android phone did.
We got these premium messages before we even made a phone call, before 1 sec was used on our cell phone plan. So thanks, Verizon, how did these scamming companies get our numbers? Did you sell us out?
How much do we have to pay to keep our information private. Lets put a price tag on it and please let the sales people tell us before we sign up.
lshen wrote: One more thing, this is why iPhone is better than an Android Phone. We have our family plan, 1 iPhone and 1 Android, iPhone never received any text message out of nowhere, but the Android phone did. We got these premium messages before we even made a phone call, before 1 sec was used on our cell phone plan. So thanks, Verizon, how did these scamming companies get our numbers? Did you sell us out? How much do we have to pay to keep our information private. Lets put a price tag on it and please let the sales people tell us before we sign up.
Not really sure how this makes the iPhone any better. If Verizon sold out 1 of your phones, why wouldn't they sell out the other? Makes no sense. Both of the phones are able to receive premium text messages. There is nothing to keep these companies from sending premium messages to a number depending on the phone that is active on the line.
Just maybe, the person with the Android phone inadvertantly signed up for something without realizing it and the person with the iPhone wasn't as adventurous. Or maybe the person with the iPhone pays more attention and reads the fine print before just clicking away.
Now, I know you are going to say the person with the Android phone did not do that, but that is the point. MAYBE THEY DIDN'T REALIZE WHAT THEY HAD DONE! Not once did I say they did something on purpose and are now denying it. If you do something without realizing it, how can you possibly KNOW that you didn't do it? Do you ALWAYS read EVERY LAST WORD before you click "accept" or "yes" or "install". If you can TRUTHFULLY say yes, that probably puts you in the ~5% of users that do.
{please keep your posts courteous}.
We signed up with Verizon for a family plan, 1 iphone and 1 blackberry on the first day, I was using the blackberry, didn't even touch the phone and got the text messages from the 5-digit source.
Then on 2nd day, I decided to change the blackberry because it's so ugly, so we went into the store, exchanged that for an Android phone and paid additional $35 re-stocking fee. I decided to use the iPhone because it looks so much better, and had my hubby use the Android.
iPhone never got anything weird text message, as I was the one using it. But Android kept getting them, supposedly the number leaked from the blackberry I was using before.
If i accidentally pressed anything, it's me using the iPhone too on 2nd day forward , why didn't iPhone get those?
Maybe iPhone just has better security? We all know how iPhone havs so many restrictions, maybe it's actually good.
But whatever the phone capability, Verizon should have never concealed this premium messaging information from consumers before they signed up.
I checked online and found a list of 6 possible blocks. I blocked them all. So how is 6 possible blocks thousands of blocks possible? Maybe Verizon customer service needs to go to grade 1 and relearn how to count.
I'm willing to buy shoes and clothes that are over $1000, because whatever others think, as long as I like them, I think it's worth it. But when i get charged for something I did not order, and to know that cell phone providers make me vulnerable that way, then even it's just 1 cent, I don't like it.
Besides, you said something about replying STOP to stop these things from coming. But the 1st message you get, you get charged for $.99, why should I get charged for that? Even if I reply STOP, why should I have to waste my text message limit on things like this?
{please keep your posts courteous}
Au contraire, my Verizon Defender friend!
The scam does indeed lie at least in part with Verizon for not telling prospective customers up front about these types of charges. Along with many, many other fees, charges, surcharges, and unexpected charge surprises that continually appear on the monthly bill, this is just one more example of Verizon sticking it to their customer. If they would simply produce a brochure, listing, or printout to give to new customers to let them know what kinds of fees and charges they might encounter, they might actually be surprised at the reduction in calls from surprised and even angry customers. However, as they prove day in and day out, they would rather deal with angry customers who are stuck with hidden and surprise charges than have the integrity to tell them up front what they might incur.
2 months in a row My wife received premium messaging charges.
She does not really txt and has no idea where it came from.
She may have agreed to something in some shady offer, who is to know.
That's not my beef with Verizon over this issue.
My specific beef is I signed up for a phone and internet device.
I did not sign up for a credit card. I have absolutely no with for anyone , EVER, to be able to charge me via my cell phone bill who is not Verizon.
I read a lot of fuzzy logic analogies in this thread and some pretty foolish statements.
At the end of the day, how would you feel if random web sites were allowed to display a popup add on your PC, and that even by closing that popup and ignoring it your ISP would still bill you for viewing it?
How does it make any sense at all that Verizon is acting as a form of payment without me even having to use a specifically generated payment ID or password?
This isn't how any other form of payment work. Even easy to use forms like Paypal require a several step process you must follow to actually pay for something.
Even goggles android market has clearly defined notification that you are paying for something when you purchase an app.
Not only is this abhorrent, I would venture to guess if it were put under scrutiny in a court of law Verizon would be found culpable for acting as a payment and billing agency without proper controls in place to protect their customers.
I really don't want to hear any crap about , you need to pay attention.
I don't need to pay attention to scammers. I need for the loop hole to be closed.
This happened to my wife within a week of getting her smart phone, and judging from what I am hearing this seems to be the pattern. Vultures preying on noobs.
Some have said we can't prove we didn't sign up. I say , prove I did. Not just a txt was sent to my phone according to a log, show me proof positive that I actually signed up by furnishing information, a security question, email address, credit card number, SOMETHING that shows I wasn't bilked by some shady sleazebag using white txt on a white background.
Simply owning a smartphone is not a validation to allowing the cell provider to let anyone who wants to bill me do it through the service provider.
How many millions of people have had to notice the 10 dollar charge to even know this was possible and that they have to block this on their phone to make sure it doesn't happen again?
Did you know there approximately 70 million users in the US with smartphones?
How many people are going to make a fuss over 10 dollars ? How many are really going to chase it down after they call their provider angrily and get told, ya that's how it is, would like me to block it so we are protecting you?
The point is they should have protected us from the start.
I checked my blocks online, and have the top two checked for block, but I still recieve the $9.99 charges. What's wrong?
sounds like you subscribed to that service before the blocks where put in place, find the short code and text STOP
Good morning and thank you for all of the responses from the community!
JSull, it could also be that the Premium Message Subscription was opted into before the block was added; therefore, you are still being charged monthly. If this is the case, you can remove the PSMS Block, cancel the subscription by sending a text with the word STOP to the 5-6 digit short code. Once you get the confirmation that it has been cancelled, the PSMS Block can be re-added and the charges will stop. If you'd like, you can send me a Private Message and I will be happy to personally assist you with this process.
Thank you,
