Incoming Text messages, spam, cost us $$?

[krazykevin]

Alright, I just received our new phones today, my upgrade, and a new AAP for my daughter. When I turned on her phone it already had 2 text messages. One was from someone who wanted to be my friend, text them back yes or no. The second message was from an account that kinda looked like it was from sprint, sms.ac I think was the number, not sure though. It stated that I had already spent $5.00 on text messages at .25c per message. There could have been more to the message, but maybe I didn't read down far enough. While I was still checking the phone out, I received another text message with a daily quote from someone. What gives here? The phone was out out of its wrapper, but I assumed it was for them to program it. Cause when I first turned on the phone it was ready to go.

I'm gonna watch the texts to see if any more come in, but it kinda made me wonder how sprint handles incoming text messges. What will keep people from sending us text messages and running our bill up??? Seems if someone knows our number, they could really do some damage. I also assume that the messages on the new phone has already cost up .30 or .75 cents. Do we get charged for this crap?


Kevin

[Dale]

I decided on an unlimited sms plan for that type of thing. I was getting tons of spam sms, until I kept on complaining to them. All the SMS spam has stopped once I subscribed to the unlimited SMS.

Okay, no flame me for this ... but doesn't it make (business) sense to keep on spamming the subscribers without unlimited SMS on their phone in hopes of paying up, and once they subscribe to the mega expensive, super duper wallet shrinking unlimited SMS plan, all the SMS spam stops?

[krazykevin]

Called CS and sure enough, my SMS bill is already up to $1.20 on the new phone. 3 of the messages were sent to the phone the night that I signed up for the third line. That was this past Thursday! I told them that I had just received the phone today. The kicker was this, instead of making a change and crediting the 1.20 back today, we'll just wait to the end of the month and make one BIG credit in case more spam messages come through. It kinda makes sense, but jeeeez. Seems the only way around this is to disable vision/text altogether, or like Dale mentioned, buy an unlimited plan. Both seem stupid to me. Why isn't incoming messages free, since the user has no control over this????

[laursifer]

The second message was from an account that kinda looked like it was from sprint, sms.ac I think was the number, not sure though. It stated that I had already spent $5.00 on text messages at .25c per message. There could have been more to the message, but maybe I didn't read down far enough. While I was still checking the phone out, I received another text message with a daily quote from someone. What gives here? The phone was out out of its wrapper, but I assumed it was for them to program it. Cause when I first turned on the phone it was ready to go.


Hmmm... this is fishy. SMS.ac is a website that charges insane prices for group text messaging and things of the like. People have to sign up for SMS.ac as far as I know.

If the number you got was recently canceled by another user, and recycled to you, you might be still getting their messages. Maybe you can call and complain enough that they'll assign a new number to you, since you just got it not too long ago.

*EDIT*

Actually looking at the site, it says you can send texts from there for free, but I think there is a way to sign up and whatnot... and get bombarded with a bunch of messages. Like the "Flirt" section on their site. People can look up others, which kind of explains that text you got.