Killing Unwanted Text Messages from Yahoo! Alerts? 388
Creighti asks: "When I first got my new cellphone I immediately received several automated Text Message 'Alerts' from Yahoo and MSN which recurred on a daily basis. My guess was (is) that the previous owner of my cell phone number signed up for these things. Six months later I'm still getting unwanted text messages from Yahoo! Alerts.
I managed to get rid of the MSN messages by signing up with MSN (gack), registering the phone number as mine, and de-selecting all text messages. I've tried the same trick with Yahoo. I've tried filling out the Yahoo! Help form that appeared to apply (interestingly enough, the Yahoo Help entry I've used several times to request they stop sending the unwanted alert appears to have been removed, but clicking the 'No' button on this page would work). I've even tried emailing abuse@yahoo.com. Anyone else getting text-message spammed by Yahoo! (or any other service)? Any suggestions for what I should do next to try and get Yahoo! to stop sending these unwanted messages?" Why aren't the text message preferences deleted when the cancellation notices comes thru?
I would... (Score:4, Informative)
Send them a bill. They are using your airtime, with something you didn't ask for. If they don't want to pay the bill, they will find a way to stop it.
--T
Re:I would... (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless the cellphone number has been given out to a lot of people, I would just change it. It's the path of least resistance...
Re:I would... (Score:3, Informative)
And this gives you cause to sue them in small claims court.
If the amount of messaging exceeds $50-$100, it could be worth suing them in small claims. They probably won't even show up, and a decision will be reached (probably in your favour) in absentia.
Of course, IANAL, so don't follow that as legal advice.
So does this actually work? (Score:2)
Re:So does this actually work? (Score:3, Informative)
I can't tell if you're trolling, or if you're really this dense.
See, Small Claims COURT is a court of LAW ; judgements made there must be carried out and paid in full, else the guilty will face federal charges.
Yeesh.. Do they let just anybody come here or what?
Re:So does this actually work? (Score:2, Interesting)
Now, if you win against somebody like Yahoo!, then you're probably pretty safe. They're a big target, and they're not particularly likely or able to hide themselves, and they probably won't go bankrupt due to a small claims suit. However, while getting a default judgement is relatively easy (it's your proof against them not showing up), it can be very difficult to track people to get them to pay. Often, people who get evicted move out and don't leave an address or number, or businesses who get sued simply "disappear", and there's no contact avaialbe for the person who ran the business. Once they find an personal address or place of employment or the place where they bank, they can garnish wages or accounts, or serve them for a debtors exam, where they would reveal all their assets.
The bottom line is, once you get a judgement in your favor, it's not as easy as you think to get your money.
Re:So does this actually work? (Score:5, Informative)
To add to the previous respondents that also said you're wrong, I can give an example of what happens in small claims. My brother went through this and it took him a year to collect his money.
An established nursery business with several locations in a particular city in Oklahoma let one of their unlicensed, illegal immigrant workers drive one of their spare cars. This guy came barreling down the road, over the hill, and realized he was going too fast to avoid hitting the car that had stopped at the light in front of him. He swerved into oncoming traffic and nailed my brother head on as he was waiting in the oncoming turn lane. Police came, arrested illegal immigrant for no license and no insurance. My brothers car needed major work, and he only had liability as he had just paid it off a month before.
Nursery came and bailed the guy out of jail. The nursery claimed they had sold the car to the guy, and "We're not responsible." My brother went to the DMV and had to pay to get the ownership records himself, as proof that they were the registered owners. He had to pay to file the claim in small claims court. He had to pay to have them served with a summons. They didn't show up to court, so he won. He sent them several letters, never got an acknowledgement or a dime from them.
He went back to court a few months later with delivery receipts of the letters he had sent. He had to buy something from the nursery with a check so that he could figure out where their bank account was and what the number was. Once he had this information, he ask the court for a garnishment. It was granted, he went to the bank, and got about half of what he was owed because they didn't have enough in the account to cover the full amount. Another round of registered letters, another trip back to court, another garnishment, and he finally got to their bank account at a time when they had enough money to cover what he was owed and all the additional costs he had accrued trying to collect the money.
This is the same wherever you go, and it even will work in your favor if you get sued. Just don't pay, and it can take months or years for them to get the money out of you, if they ever get it. Now, there is of course no guarentee you won't eventually piss some judge off and have a warrant issued for you.
Re:So does this actually work? (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow.. Can you add any more variables to that case? Illegal immigrant, no license, nursery without sufficient funds to cover costs, ...
I never said it would be a one-day, zero expense endeavour, but it certainly doesn't involve a Columbo-esque plot or a potential international incident.
Moreover; press attention would do wonders for this case. Yahoo! doesn't want their name smeared rightly across the headlines for something they could settle for $200. In all likelyhood they'd pay the money to get rid of you. They'll waste large amounts of legal funding on cases that matter.
Re:I would... (Score:2)
Really? You can send anyone of your chossing a bill and then sue them just 'cause they didn't pay? How do you know you're even sending it to the proper accounts payable department?
Granted that Yahoo! may in fact be causing this guys' cell phone bill to creap up $0.02 at a time (at least thats what text messages cost to my vzw phone), but I don't believe Yahoo is liable.
They *should* however make it a fsck of a lot easier to get rid of these text messages.
Court (Score:3, Informative)
Yes you can sue anyone for not paying a bill.
In court they can just argue they're not the right person. That is why we have small claims court, to facilitate small claims cheaply and easily for all 3 parties. (You, them and the gov)
Re:I would... (Score:2)
Really? You can send anyone of your chossing a bill and then sue them just 'cause they didn't pay? How do you know you're even sending it to the proper accounts payable department?
Yes, you can. You will need to make a best effort to determine the appropriate address for their AP dept. Note that if you sue, you'd best be sure you had a legitimate reason for the billing, or they can sue you in return.
In this case, there is a legitimate reason.
Re:I would... (Score:5, Insightful)
IANAL. Check with a lawyer, but you'll probably find the following to be correct.
Legally, they CAN'T ignore such a bill that you choose to send them.
Under US law, it is ILLEGAL for Yahoo! to send unsolicited advertising messages to a mobile device, such as a pager and the like. You can bill them up to $500 for EACH MESSAGE. So if he sends them a bill, legally they MUST PAY.
Send them a message via certified snail mail, return receipt requested, explaining that the owner of the phone number has changed, and demanding immediate removal of your phone's details from the database. Tell them that failure to comply by a certain date will result in them paying penalties of up to $500 per message sent to your mobile device.
And if the messages don't stop, send them a bill for $350 for each message, with a warning that failure to pay by a certain will result in court action being taken against Yahoo! and $500 being payable for each message.
Re:I would... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I would... (Score:3, Insightful)
Just call them each time you get a message, sooner or later they'll get tired.
Re:I would... (Score:3, Insightful)
Uhm, yes and no. Speaking as someone who's recently had to deal with a Very Large Company who'd over-billed me (to the tune of $200 over four months), I can tell you that yes, perseverance will pay off. Not, however, because they get 'tired', but because eventually you'll speak to someone with reason, you'll speak calmly and plainly about the situation and they'll get you fixed up. It took me over a month of phone calls; level 1, 2, and 3 before I finally got a supervisor in the billing department who was kind enough to help me out. Now that I've received the cheque, I'll have to remember to write an appropriate letter of thanks. (My sister works in a call centre so I know they hear about things like that. So if someone goes the extra mile or even helps you when others won't - let them know! The guy might get a bonus or something out of it, and it'll certainly brighten their day.)
How I get results by complaining - a guide (Score:5, Informative)
My typical procedure (first week):
1. Contact first level personnel for about 3 days and gather employee IDs and case numbers.
2. Cease talking with first level and skip directly to first level supervisors confronting them with evidence. Do so for 1 day, on the 3rd day with at least 2 calls documenting the supervisor employee ID and case numbers.
3. Cease talking with supervisors and skip directly to second level supervisors. Do so for 1 day similar to 1st level.
4. Advise the second level supervisor that if the problem is not handled within the next 24 hours (the 5th day), the next directive will be received from his manager, ignore the laughter if any insues.
5. Follow up the next day (by then you should have a direct line) and remind him that the problem still exists.
Begin corporate level follow ups as follows (second week, generally 2 to 3 days):
1. Look up the company's corporate records for the following:
a) The front desk phone number
b) The Investor Relations (or any other PR function) - optional, never used it
c) The legal counsel of the company - optional, never used it
d) The company's mailing address for the HQ
2. Contact the front desk and ask to be transferred to the Office of the President/CEO. It's really none of their business to know why, but be candid and polite.
3. Believe it or not, most of the time you will in fact reach the executive assistant or someone whose job is specifically to resolve stretched out problems. Once you reach that person, obtain their direct number, e-mail, fax, and mailing address. Be prepared to send a ton of evidence of wrongdoing. The people at the top generally will have the organization chart available and know the executive in charge of that particular part of the company.
4. If you are lucky, and most of the time you won't be, you'll be given contact information for that particular executive. The executives are extremely busy people, so you'll likely talk to his assistant instead. Most of the time, however, it's not really necessary.
5. Be prepared for very different treatment the next time you call the customer service department as your name will be quite well known around the company. A simple memo from about 4-5 management levels down advising on how to deal with your problem carries infinitely more weight than any insult you can come up with.
Yes, I get results fast and this kind of work generally costs the client about $1200 or so. In fact, I once got a Nortel Regional VP in charge of my area to contact me within literally 40 minutes of me reaching just the front desk at Nortel to resolve a vendor issue. The vendor subsequently lost their authorization from Nortel.
Does this sound like overkill? Try to call Yahoo front desk, ask for Office of CEO, and present your case. Internal pressure is very effective.
Oh yeah, the mailing address is for the thank you letter along with hard copies of the evidence.
Enjoy!
Re:I would... (Score:5, Insightful)
When it started up a month or so later, I sent a registered letter to the CEO, calmly explaining that the first time is a mistake, the second time is harassment. I also filed complaints with the FCC, the NASD, the US attorney general, and their own attorney general.
I got a polite, written response from a representative of the company explaining why the error occured, and also outlining the steps they were taking to make sure that it could not occur again.
So... Be calm, be forgiving, and be factual. And then scream bloody murder.
Re:I would... (Score:2)
Hah, post to Slashdot, we'll flatten their server for you!!
Oh, wait...
Re:I would... (Score:2)
Re:I would... (Score:2)
Of course, we're talking about SMS messages. Some carrier charge you a very small fee (i.e. $0.02) for each message, with possibly an allotment of free messages.
Contact your telco (Score:5, Insightful)
As they are making money off you and Yahoo isn't, you are more likely to get a useful response.
Re:Contact your telco (Score:4, Informative)
Most carriers' response? Cancel SMS on your wireless account. Granted, you won't be able then to receive ANY SMS messages, but that's not their problem. Frustrating? Yes. Welcome to the world of wireless telco.
Re:Contact your telco (Score:2)
Airtouch's policy was that they couldn't stop it and they required a court order to tell me where they were coming from.
We ended up changing the pager's number.
Re:Contact your telco (Score:2)
Roger's told me there was no possible way to block just one sender and I would have to either change my number or disable text messaging entirely.
Oops... (Score:5, Funny)
Talk to your carrier. (Score:2)
Why don't the messages stop? (Score:5, Informative)
Yahoo or MSN do not receive notification when someone cancels their phone account.
Re:Why don't the messages stop? (Score:2)
The moral of the story? If you're cancelling an email account and there's any chance someone might be emailing you something you wouldn't want someone else to recieve, make sure you get them your new email address!
Re:Why don't the messages stop? (Score:3, Interesting)
YAHOO, on the other hand, has consistantly bounced attempts to notify them that they are using invalid addresses for spam when sent to their "errors to" address, and so they continue to send spam to addresses that no longer exist. In fact, they continue to send spam to addresses that never existed in the first place!
I suspect the only way to stop it is going to involve the legal system and court-ordered cash settlements... Or, an article in the Wall Street Journal about them, just before some important SEC filing!
Hmm, not sure you've done this... (Score:5, Informative)
Yahoo! Mobile Devices [yahoo.com], log in under your Yahoo account and select "Add a New Device", then add your phone number, or e-mail for the cell phone, depending on what your operator supports and then specifically do not choose any alerts.
Re:Hmm, not sure you've done this... (Score:5, Informative)
I successfully signed up for and then cancelled THE SAME MESSAGE SERVICE for my phone--and for the couple days it was active, successfully received two messages. My phone happily collapsed those into one message, with a "removing duplicates" warning.
Whatever else is going on, Yahoo does NOT require that a "Mobile Device" have a unique phone number. Or at least, didn't at the time I was trying this.
Fortunately, the volume of messages I was getting was nowhere near my monthly limit. I got pretty quick at ignoring them. A few months later they started getting inconsistent--skipping one or two days on occasion. Eventually they just petered out, and I haven't had one now in over a year.
Preferences (Score:5, Interesting)
Just a guess, but probably what is registered is an e-mail address like 3215551212@sprintpcs.com which is how e-mail can find its way to SprintPCS phones. The service you sign up for may have no relation to your cell provider, so cancelling one doesn't cancel the other and then your phone number (and hence e-mail address) can be recycled.
Re:Preferences (Score:3, Informative)
Am I the only Sprint PCS customer that doesn't have an e-mail address like this? Mine has the same user name as my standard e-mail account and the phone number is only useful if you use Sprint PCS's web form to send a text message.
Re:Preferences (Score:2)
It may depend on how long you've been a customer. I think at some point they introduced the alphabetical names. I've been a subscriber for about 3 years, I guess.
Try the numeric one and see if it works.
Speaking of email to phones.... (Score:5, Funny)
I have a couple really good deals on Viagra and Penis Enlargement to pass on.
A *somewhat* related question... (Score:5, Insightful)
I have an *ancient* Geocities home page, that was set up before Yahoo acquired them. I am "yoderm" on Yahoo and was on Geocities before the acquisition. Unfortunately, the GC home page is not associated with my Yahoo account. I now have no way of logging into the thing, and really want it deleted.
I've sent two messages through their "help" center, but no response. I've tried every support@ and help@ type e-mail I could think of for yahoo.com, geocities.com, and yahoo-inc.com. They all either bounce or get an automated reply that says "go to the help center".
Conclusion: Yahoo goes WAY out of their way to avoid dealing with human "customers".
Re:A *somewhat* related question... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:A *somewhat* related question... (Score:2)
Re:A *somewhat* related question... (Score:2)
That sucks. Not that you should have to jump through such hoops, but what if you try making the site a Terms Of Service violation? You could hammer it with wget to constantly exceed the bandwidth allocation, or maybe falsely say there's some sort of, I dunno... Nazi propaganda on there? I dunno, I don't know exactly what it takes to get a site kicked off of Geocities. Good luck.
Re:A *somewhat* related question... (Score:2)
Re:A *somewhat* related question... (Score:2)
Re:A *somewhat* related question... (Score:2, Informative)
There's just no way to contact Yahoo customer service.
answer: copyright violation (Score:5, Informative)
Not long after, that account disappeared, and I was happy.
Re:answer: copyright violation (Score:2, Interesting)
Sue - Its the American Way (Score:5, Funny)
I have to remember that excuse (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I have to remember that excuse (Score:5, Funny)
"Then explain why you paid $400 for a phone with a color screen."
Yahoo support sucks :( (Score:2)
Standard OSS response (Score:2)
All you need is broadband a box running Linux. Horde [horde.org] has pretty much everything you'd need, and there's plenty of free stuff out there to make up for any shortcomings.
I'm running Horde off my cable connection - they block port 80 but I don't care because I do everything via SSL anyway.
And in the process you'll learn a hell of a lot about networking and Linux.
Cancellation Notice??? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yahoo essentially knows nothing about the phone number. All it knows is that there is a number (or more abstractly, an email address) through which it should send its junk. They don't know who/what/where otherwise. They know nothing about who currently owns which phone #.
Re:Cancellation Notice??? (Score:2)
Also keep in mind that most text messages are limited to an insanely small amount of characters, typ. 120-300. You think they want to waste "precious marketing space" with such frivolities as unsubscribe info?
Putting an evil flip on the question... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Putting an evil flip on the question... (Score:5, Informative)
Generally works pretty well, except when the phone number changes hands.
Re:Putting an evil flip on the question... (Score:2)
A far easier method would be to up a shell script to continuously send interesting messages to $phoneno@$provider.com. I have yet to see any providers offer spam protection (but that might change if Euro-style SMS spam starts in the U.S.)
Re:Putting an evil flip on the question... (Score:5, Interesting)
I only give out the page-name address to people.
This way i have full control via procmail on the filtering of who can and cant send to it and have it forwarded.
Granted someone smart can realize its my phone number @whatever.carier.com (easy to find out the email gateway too) but it stops most idiots that would only know to use what i give them.
Its also nicer as if i change phones or numbers, the address for my 'pager' never changes.
What would be really nice is for the SMS gateway to have a setting so mail addressed TO the 'correct' adderss was denied, but mail addressed to my page-name adderss is allowed.
Then I have 100% control over who pages me.
Its also nice to have copys CC'd to my real email, so i do have access to full headers, and can archive them not on the phone.
Just my $0.02
The Key to Advertising (Score:3, Insightful)
Well it depends ... (Score:2)
or turn off SMS
I mean what the hell kinda question is this, did you even bother calling that CUSTOMER SERVICE line that is on your bill??
See if the Cell Phone provider has filtering tools (Score:5, Informative)
I was able to unsubscribe from the alerts - but even after I unsubscribed from the alerts, I kept receiving advertisements from the service sent to my cellphone.
After a couple of unsucessful attempts to get it stopped I finally poked around on the Vtext site and found out that I was able to block a specified domain from sending to my cellphone.
Blocking the domain of the weather alerts provider killed the spam as well.
See if your provider doesn't let you filter out @yahoo.com messages.
Same problem with timex messenger watch (Score:2)
At least you got rid of MS (Score:2)
Re:At least you got rid of MS (Score:3, Informative)
What's the problem? The passport account is under your e-mail address, which means it's yours. Go to the Passport main site [passport.com], follow the links to get the password for that account either mailed to you or reset (Follow the Member Services link, then "I forgot my password", follow the on-screen instructions), then login, go to Member Services, and close the account (the "Close my .NET Passport account" link). Done.
been there, done that (Score:2)
I feel so guilty. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:At least you got rid of MS (Score:2)
postmaster@something.gov
I try to spread it around. nsa.gov, fbi.gov, whitehouse.gov. Spread the love, people.
A friend of mine has the exact same problem (Score:5, Informative)
Why (4) get Yahoo! to! stop! it! please! isn't an option boils down to "they don't listen". It's one of those scary companies where there's no apparent way to actually *contact* anyone who can do something about this. There's no there, there so to speak.
He has said that the wireless carrier was particularly unhelpful, which doesn't surprise me. I had a problem for a while when I got my first cellular with getting FAX calls. They offered to *sell* me caller ID (an expensive option on a limited range of AMPS equipment), but wouldn't do anything about tracking down who it was.
I'm frankly surprised that there isn't more phone spam (how hard is it to figure out that all of a carrier's cell numbers are in NXX-5xx-xxxx?) or that message services don't build in a failsafe way to stop them, like adding a user-specfic hash code to every message and then have a web page where you can go, enter that hash, and disable that phone number's messaging.
Here's what I do.. (Score:2)
Cancelled? (Score:2, Informative)
Simple, those notification messages aren't in any way related to that phone. A user is unlikely to cancel his/her yahoo account just because they cancelled their phone service.
It's obviously a problem, but definitely not an intentional one on Yahoo's part. An article like this on Slashdot is probably enough to get them to put up a page explaining how to get your number off someone else's account.
TCPA violation? (Score:2, Informative)
Thats Yahoo. (Score:4, Interesting)
This is the problem.
1. Sign up for yahoo email.
2. Register an alternate email address of someone you don't like.
3. sign up the alternate address for all kinds of junk.
Their is no way they can cancel it. Yahoo will do what they always do when you email them for help, flush it down the toilet, or threaten YOU for spamming them...
Pre-spammed accounts... (Score:2)
I've seen similar things happen to folks who sign up with larger ISPs. Recently one signed up with RCN, got an "available" e-mail address, connected for the first time only to find 50+ spams inside from various companies.
I think we're doomed to see this more and more as ISPs/phoneservice providers run out of name/numberspace. Recycling will happen. What can the providers do if the e-mail/phonemail address is out there already? Even if they close the number of X number of months, the spammers will still pump out ads at the address.
Use the PHONE. Speak with a PERSON. (Score:4, Informative)
1-408-731-3300
While not Yahoo alerts... (Score:2)
Profit! (Score:5, Interesting)
Trust me. You won't be on that list for long. If you are, take a trip to your friendly neighborhood court and file for a small claims case. Then you're talking settlement.
Re:Profit! (Score:4, Informative)
IANAL.
By sending unsolicited advertisements, Yahoo! are breaking the c.1991 law that says it is illegal to send unsolicited advertisements to a mobile device.
A mobile phone is a mobile device.
And you can make them pay up to $500 per message.
Re:Profit! (Score:3, Interesting)
Tmobile incomings (Score:2)
This is almost as annoying as... (Score:2)
Spam is annoying in your inbox, when it makes it to your phone it is ten times the annoyance. Shouldn't they mandate a block/allow list for cellphones, since (on many plans) it's a pay-per service. i.e. with my local carrier, it's $0.10 for text message unless you subscribe to the service.
More recently, they allowed users to be exempt from either the service subscription or the per-use payments... but it's still annoying to have so little control over your phone email - especially once spammers decide to start hitting random 1235555555@text.mycellphoneprovider.com
Your state may have an applicable law... (Score:2, Informative)
Unfortunately, unless you're bored and otherwise unemployed, this is hardly worth the while.
Yahoo Text Messages are Per Account (Score:2, Insightful)
Does Yahoo even have access to this kind of information? "Yeah, can you guys look up my cell phone number among your thousands of subscribers and modify that subscribers text messenging preferences?" That sounds like a nightmare of a problem.
I suggest changing your Cell Phone number. That's your easiest solution.
Tech support number for Yahoo (Score:5, Informative)
Ah, here we go. Give Yahoo a call at 1-408-349-3300. Took me a while to find that number, but it actually works.
Change your e-mail address if possible (Score:5, Funny)
---insert signature line here---
simple solution (Score:4, Informative)
Most mailing list unsubscribe you if your messages bounce for some limit.
Inconveniet yes, but it should work.
What to do (Score:3, Informative)
IANAL, so I don't really know how well this will work.
Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)
I've done this (Score:3, Interesting)
So, I itemized the lost minutes, as well as about an hour's worth of lost wages (this was during work) and sent it off. Sure enough, about two weeks later I got a check in the mail.
Needless to say, I didn't cash it...it makes a good story. Plus, my coworkers thought I was crazy when I was on the phone.
Re:Phone spam (Score:3, Informative)
Sneakemail and other aliasing services can be used to avoid this as well. Instead of sending the mail to 5551234567@sms.phoneprovider.com you can send it to a sneakemail address which will bounce it to your SMS. This way you can kill off the sneakemail address if necessary and stop the spam easily.
Not a solution (Score:2)
Yes, it's a useful way to give out an SMS contact address without giving out your phone's direct address, which you can revoke if it starts receiving spam. But once spam starts coming directly to the phone, you're screwed.
And it's not the user's fault in this case - He didn't do anything to sign up for these spams, it happens that he has inherited the spam that a former user (to whom it was likely not spam) had.
Re:Phone spam (Score:2)
You can even do this easily at home using any standard mailer and a mail alias file. Just point a domain at your home DSL link (or whatever you use), and put the entry into your "aliases" file. Even if you use Fetchmail to retrieve mail from a remote account, you can make it so that those remote accounts can eventually go to a pager address. Fun fun fun
Re:Phone spam (Score:2)
Nahh.. I've got a nice new phone from Telus [telus.com] which supports 1X, SMS, two-way text messaging and all the other cruft; but I didn't get it because of that, I got it despite all of those features. I couldn't care less about surfing the WWW or reading e-mail on this small screen (small for a computing device, large for a cellphone). I got the phone because it was inexpensive and came with four months' of free airtime and an additional $100 credit towards my bill for a very low rate ($129.99 plus tax) and free activation. When I activated the phone, I simply told the girl not to add any web/text features - period. If I do decide later down the road that I want (some of) them I'll have the option. I like having choice, and eliminating all the phones that are web, 1X, or text-message ready severely reduces my choice (to almost nothing; most new digital phones nowadays are capable of all these features)
Re:Not to be a pain in the a**... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not to be a pain in the a**... (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re:Not to be a pain in the a**... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not to be a pain in the a**... (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Because most geeks own cell phones
2. Because most geeks have an interest in wireless communications
3. Because most geeks have an interest in stopping spam
In addition, I think the discussion thus far has been very interesting. If it bothers you, you can filter it out in the preferences.
Re:Well if it's with Sprint (Score:2)
But that's not the point here. Even if you don't pay extra to receive spam, you still don't want it. Since he doesn't want these alerts, to him, they're spam.
5 years ago, it was computer email spam. Today it's cell-phone spam. Who knows what it'll be in 5 years, or what the costs will be? Especially since some spammers are trying blocks of cell phone numbers.
Re:Well if it's with Sprint (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Well if it's with Sprint (Score:2)
If you go over your quota, the cost was either 10 cents or 25 cents per message.
I don't think that T-Mobile altered this policy.
another option (Score:3, Informative)
umm.... (Score:2)
Re:umm.... (Score:2)
Re:umm.... (Score:2)