Sprint PCS Beware of Nine Dollar Ring Tones Sprint Allows These Text Messages TEMPE HILLS Maryland

Hello I am a SPRINT long time customer. I'm also full of complaints BUT...No matter how bad they've ripped me off thus far, I remain a Sprint customer.

Back on subject, you get this strange text on your phone. There is no phone number to call back and see who it is, hm-mm...

The first time you ignore it, guess what you receive another text from the same weird number. Does this sound familiar?

I don't know how other cell companies, show there text. But before you even click on anything, after the name or number it shows you the first couple of words of the message.

So naturally when you see: CONGRATULATIONS; you've just...your curiosity has been peeked. But when you click on it, you're politely informed about your purchase.

WHAT IN BLAZING HE@# is going on PURCHASE??? So if you're in the middle of doing something, like most of us are. Your next thought/action is I'll get to that in a minute. Something comes up you forget about it, UNTIL...

You get that new text from that same annoying number, or a different four digit code/number. They send you to there website & that's when as you read the fine print, you find out you're being charged:$9.99.

I don't want your Ring-tones/wallpaper nothing. Problem is doing it from your cell phone, only gets you a new text stating "I'm sorry, I didn't understand your request".

The thing is, what were not linking together is ,the fact that we've seen/heard the advertisement, for these services. But some of us had NO interest in them.

In these ads we so choose to ignore, its stated in very small print that there is a $9.99 fee-for-service. BUT...it also tells you to text a message back to them in case you're not interested.

It's actually clear and simple, I guess I want know how true it works until next week. But so far so good. So anyway, as soon as you receive, the four digit text hit reply and text STOP,QUIT.

DO NOT TEXT ANYTHING ELSE, because it's automated! You'll receive a text back, stating you have been unsubscribed or omething to that effect. Just remember, pick one of the above words and the system will politely unsubscribe you. TWO WORDS, you got it? Choose one...

STOP or QUIT!

Voted by text on one of the many tv show? Yep, they're signing you up that way. You click on a pop up for a "free" ringtone, they've got ya. You get an offer for a free wallpaper in your pop cap, gues what! Take a look at Dada Mobile, Jamster and Blinko's websites. But, for goodness sakes don't put in your mobile number!!! Look towards the bottom of the page and you will see where they tell about the 9.99 a month charge. I saw an ad in a woman's magazine which showed step by step how to download a ringtone and set it up on your cell phone. It was in a cartoon format. Hmmmm, got a 12 year old? The problem is there are people out there who actually want the service. They like to have a multitude of ringtones and caller tunes.

Voted by text on one of the many tv show? Yep, they're signing you up that way. You click on a pop up for a "free" ringtone, they've got ya. You get an offer for a free wallpaper in your pop cap, gues what! Take a look at Dada Mobile, Jamster and Blinko's websites. But, for goodness sakes don't put in your mobile number!!! Look towards the bottom of the page and you will see where they tell about the 9.99 a month charge. I saw an ad in a woman's magazine which showed step by step how to download a ringtone and set it up on your cell phone. It was in a cartoon format. Hmmmm, got a 12 year old? The problem is there are people out there who actually want the service. They like to have a multitude of ringtones and caller tunes.

Voted by text on one of the many tv show? Yep, they're signing you up that way. You click on a pop up for a "free" ringtone, they've got ya. You get an offer for a free wallpaper in your pop cap, gues what! Take a look at Dada Mobile, Jamster and Blinko's websites. But, for goodness sakes don't put in your mobile number!!! Look towards the bottom of the page and you will see where they tell about the 9.99 a month charge. I saw an ad in a woman's magazine which showed step by step how to download a ringtone and set it up on your cell phone. It was in a cartoon format. Hmmmm, got a 12 year old? The problem is there are people out there who actually want the service. They like to have a multitude of ringtones and caller tunes.

Voted by text on one of the many tv show? Yep, they're signing you up that way. You click on a pop up for a "free" ringtone, they've got ya. You get an offer for a free wallpaper in your pop cap, gues what! Take a look at Dada Mobile, Jamster and Blinko's websites. But, for goodness sakes don't put in your mobile number!!! Look towards the bottom of the page and you will see where they tell about the 9.99 a month charge. I saw an ad in a woman's magazine which showed step by step how to download a ringtone and set it up on your cell phone. It was in a cartoon format. Hmmmm, got a 12 year old? The problem is there are people out there who actually want the service. They like to have a multitude of ringtones and caller tunes.

I have also been the victim of fraudulent billing by text message to my cell phone. I received a message from alltxt4.com stating that my subscription had been renewed at the rate of $9.99/month. Trouble was, it did not say what the subscription was nor had I subscribed to anything! I still have not found out if this is for ringtones or what.

I went to their website, and it is merely a front that does nothing - no company name, contacts, or anything. I called the toll-free number in the message to stop it, but it was a continuous "fast-busy" signal. I contacted my carrier, Verizon Wireless, and reported it.

They gave me another number. There were no live people here, just an automated system for removing my cell number from their system, or the option of leaving a voice mail (I did both.) A short time later, guess what, I got another one. I called Verizon again, and learned I had been hit with another $9.99 charge. Everytime one of these messages is opened, it is $9.99!!!!

What's more, Verizon does not consider this fraud and refuses to investigate. Verizon, like Sprint, stated this was "third party billing", but they could not tell me the name of the company they were billing for! Having been an account and purchasing agent for some years, I informed them they had to have records of where the payments went once Verizon collected the money. They took my phone number, and have never called me back. That was a month ago. It seems this problem is not limited to Sprint.

To the supervisor who knows it all about Text Messages and Ring tones. Let me explain how it works. First you recieve a text message offering some sort of bundled offer for Ring Tones then if you don't accept there offer the ring tones are placed on your phone with out you even knowing it. Thus you end up with ring tones that cost nine dollars on your sprint pcs phone bill.

*this contains a lot of insider information ideal for anyone with miscellaneous charges, I have been a supervisor at sprint, read on... Ring Tone Text Messages(?)- This does not make any sense, Ringtones- can be polyphonic/MIDI or a music tone that replaces the standard ringer, Text- A medium used to send and receive short messages. So,when can it be combined you might ask? While working for sprint(now an ex-employee), I have stumbled up with numerous issues involving third party companies, a typical scenario would be: Customers would sign-up for free ringtones(not from sprint)unknowingly subscribing for a monthly text service(which gives, jokes horoscopes,news,weather, etc... daily) because they did not pay attention to the disclaimer. Sprint has NOTHING to do with these companies.

How does it appear on the sprint bill? Well, back to these third party co., they have billing agencies that they are a part of whose sole purpose is to get their service charges on someone's phone bill.

Let's look at INTEGRETEL for example,it is a billing agency that handles more than 500 companies of such nature, they are screened and sprint's billing department sees integretel(which is legit).So, there is no direct contact as long as integretel is legit . Do billing companies represent fraudulent providers? That would be a questions to ask them, on what kind of qualifications you would have to be their client.Because sprint only checks the billing agencies integrity not whom they represent.What if you never subscribed to any outside service? the answer to that is that you have been slammed, plain and simple. How did they get my number? Did sprint give this information out? That Would be a yes and a no, The sprint system is not design to slam a customer in any way shape or form and sprint does not condone sharing information to any company, especially to some low-end ringtone provider, Sprint is too big of a company to waste it's time on them. On the other hand, there is speculation that sprint employees may be involved in sharing customers information for profit, which is always being investigated. It is considered internal fraud and whomever caught will be terminated on site.This however, is a problem for any cell carrier. How do I get my money back if I hadn't subsribed for anything? It is not a popular procedure but CSR's with tenure or supervisors can track down these companies within the system and give you their contact information to get a credit from them. We cannot process it because the charge is simply not from us and sprint loses money if we do. And there is no gurantee that we can actually track them down because this is not a popular procedure it would depend on the level of expertise of this person that you are talking to.On another note, sprint catches internal fraud by checking for patterns of the people having this same problem they will find the common "denominator" of which rep sold the information, there is a unique signature placed on each account everytime it is accessed even when it is not notated or when no actions are taken.there are also dozens of other ways but we will not get into that.

I had the same problem from Dada Mobile text msg 632-32 trying to get me to subscribe to Ringtones. I ignored it, but found out the next month that I was charged for this service. I never subscribed, went to their website, or answered their text msg. Sooo, how in the world did I subscribe to their service. If you ask me, its Sprint, TMobile, Cingular etc selling our numbers to this company and getting a kickback that way.

Dada Mobile's website has no way of contacting a customer service rep other than filling out a form which asks for your cell phone number. There is not a address or phone number on their site for complaints or otherwise.

However, there is a parent company if you look at the bottom. The name of said company is MME Mobile and there are numbers and contacts listed on that website.

All I can say is good luck on getting anything resolved regarding Dada Mobile. I have seen many reports where people were trying to contact them with no response what so ever.