When I wrote about preacquired account marketing for Consumerist back in October, I never dreamed I would fall victim to the scam. I also never dreamed the company who screwed me would be T-Mobile, a company I have had a relationship with since February 11, 2004 (I checked), and from which I have always received excellent customer service.
But last month, my bill was $9.99 too high. I looked into the charge, which shows up as “41463GamerData_8668958697″ on my bill, and spotted another $9.99 charge coming due on my next bill. I have no idea who Gamer-Data is, but I do know I have never had anything to do with them. The only way I could have incurred these charges is by not doing anything.
Which turned out to be the case.
At some point, Gamer-Data sent me a text message to which I did not respond. When I did not respond, T-Mobile decided that was good enough to pay Gamer-Data and then charge me $9.99 for its trouble. I do not have the message from Gamer-Data, but I do have one I received from Info-Text-Alert, to which this month’s $9.99 would have gone. Here it is:
Info-Text-AlertText Alert ProgramAll Alerts 9,99/m Unlimited Alerts#1info,help,stop Info-Text-Alert.comNotifications 2 ur cellTop Alerts
Is that supposed to be some kind of contract? How in the world does my failure to respond to that message constitute my consent to be billed $9.99 by T-Mobile? The message does not even contain the amount of the charges unless you squint really hard at that comma in “9,99″ and imagine a dollar sign somewhere nearby. The message has no warning that I will be charged if I do not respond, or what I should respond if I do not want to be charged.
If you want to know about the valuable information that Info-Text-Alert will deliver for your $9.99 per month, here is the only other message I received from it:
Info: Newcomer Kesha took her first solo chart single “TiK ToK” to the top of the Billboard Hot 100.
That message is hardly worth $9.99, even if I wanted it. It was also sent before the one above, which I assume was supposed to warn me about the charges.
This is a scam. The unfortunate part of the scam is that T-Mobile is in cahoots with Gamer-Data, Info-Text-Alert, and probably other text-message scammers. Just as bad, T-Mobile has apparently trained its customer service representatives to defend the practice. The CSR I spoke with insisted that T-Mobile “had” to pay Gamer-Data and Info-Text-Alert (both have websites—just add .com—obviously designed by the same person), but insisted that it was not T-Mobile that billed me for their services. Staring at the charges on my T-Mobile bills, I assured her she was mistaken. She insisted I did not understand how this works; that even though I never gave T-Mobile permission to pay anyone else on my behalf, they just had to do it.
I admit, I got mad. The CSR I spoke with remained impressively perky in the face of my anger. I am ashamed to admit I may have used words like “lawyer,” “blog,” and “preacquired account marketing” at various points during the call. The CSR’s perky lies had me sketching out a class action lawsuit on a nearby note card. She offered to credit my account for the charges, but I refused. I wanted the charges refunded immediately, or I wanted interest during the delay. In the end, she spoke to a supervisor and then agreed to an immediate refund (which is not a refund, but shows up as a credit to my T-Mobile account).
One might say that T-Mobile made this right in the end. I would not. This sort of thing is bullshit.
I should not have to yell at a CSR to have fraudulent charges removed from my bill; they should never have been there in the first place. And I should not be charged for not responding to a gibberish text message. If this was an isolated mistake, T-Mobile should immediately refund the charges, no questions asked. If not, I hope T-Mobile has to answer a very expensive lawsuit—or maybe a congressional inquiry.
As for me, I intend to leave T-Mobile as soon as my current contract ends in April, and I encourage you to do the same. At a minimum, start scrutinizing your bills and asking questions if you see any suspicious charges.
(photo: 22n)
If you are in Minnesota, contact The Glover Law Firm, LLC, for a free case evaluation. In any other state, you can find a consumer rights lawyer using the National Association of Consumer Advocates lawyer database.
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for the heads up. I will scrutinze my T-Mobile bill closely. I can’t believe T-Mobile would be a party to such fraud and theivery. Hopefully they will stop it immediately, or the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office will sue them; and-or a consumer class action lawsuit.
This happened to me with Sprint. For four months I received a $9.99 charge for “stock quotes.” I called Sprint and indicated that I never requested this third party service and they should creditmy account. They said they had no control over third party charges (how can that be?) but they would credit my account. The next month’s bill again had this charge. Again I called Sprint. They once again said they had no control but would credit my account which they did. Same thing happened a month later but I asked if they could block the service. They said they could. Why didn’t they inform me of this the first time? So a few weeks ago I received my bill and once again I had the charge. Once again I called Sprint. They said the block had not as yet been set up. What is this scam? Why are the charges $9.99? Why isn’t some bright attorney bringing forth a class action suit? How can I join the suit?
I am also (I thought) a happy T-Mobile customer. This kind of BS drives me crazy. I love the fact that you took the time to go back through your text message history, then put that exact text language on your post. That’s awesome, which, I feel I must note, is not merely a synonym for “good,” but which means “inspires a feeling of awe, admiration, or wonder.” Thank you, Sam.
Thanks for posting this. I’m a T-Mobile customer too, so I’ll need to watch out for this. Maybe it is time for me to start looking around for a new carrier too.
I am an attorney and this happened to my daughter (on my bill). Sprint informed me that they are required by law to pass along these types of charges. I have not verified the accuracy of Sprint’s statement or looked into whether this is something appropriate for suit. But I would certainly like to see more attention given to this scam.
Whoever told you they are “required by law” to pass along these charges was lying.
Indeed. In any event, I (as a non-lawyer) was under the impression that phone service providers were actually PROHIBITED from interrupting or terminating phone service for refusal to pay for third party charges–even charges the user legitimately made. For example, if you call a phone-in voting system and then refuse to pay the charges, the phone company cannot disconnect service, or take any other adverse action against you. The third-party is responsible for any dispute resolution or collections.
Not to pry into your playbook, but doesn’t your contract with them stipulate binding arbitration and/or an agreement not to seek class-action?
For all I know, it probably requires me to spin around twice before making calls. I don’t think I have ever actually seen my agreement with T-Mobile, nor do I know where to find it.
Try T-Mobile’s Tems and Conditions found at…
http://www.t-mobile.com/Templa.....print=true
They include Mandatory Arbitration, a Class Action Waiver, and a Jury Trial Waiver of all things.
Notably absent from those terms: anything that gives T-Mobile the right to charge me $9.99 for receiving spam text messages.
Thanks for the post. I had a similar thing happen that showed up on an AMX card. I called and AMX credited me within a week. There are a lot of scams out there. Gavin Craig
Feel free to file this claim in CA without fear of the class action waiver. Such waivers have repeatedly been adjudged unconscionable: http://www.thecomplexlitigator.....gle+Reader
Just as a heads up: AT&T does the same thing. I had to go through some hoops with them about 2 monthly charges (adding up to $30) that were added onto my mothers account through similar means. Since she never uses text messages and has her bill set to auto-pay, this went on for months. I know these are just extra hoops that should be done by default, but at least with AT&T you can put a ‘purchase block’ on an account, which requires a password to be entered before any charges can be added. I was told this would eliminate any way for charges to be automatically accepted…but we’ll see.
We’re going through the same ordeal. Tmobile says they can’t do anything, but to give us numbers to “text” that will remove the charges while we stand at Tmobile looking like idiots. You text them, they still do not take off the charges even though the text reply clearly indicates you are NOT subscribed to these services. Then you ask Tmobile how can the charges be on THEIR bill and they simply say its not our charges. Well it is if it is on YOUR bill and you are clearly billing us for these 9.99 amounts for the past 4 months. One of these “3rd party scammers” were kind enough to reimburse us, but only half of what we kept getting charged. The other “3rd party scammer” we got charged $29.99 from will NOT reimburse us, even after fighting with them on the phone about the bogus charges. I did mention to Tmobile that if this happens one more time, I’m going to file a complaint with the state’s BBB.
this happen to my bill too, 3 months straight. T-mobile also gave me a phone number to unsubscribed to that GamerData charges. i will see if they still gonna charge me in my next month’s bill. After i get my refund, imma cancel t-mobile asap.