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skyringI bought my first iPhone in Hong Kong last February. Very happy with it, especially with the cool design, ease of use etc. It was software hacked to allow it to work with Australian SIMs, a vital feature as no Australian carrier was yet offering iPhone plans.
I set it up, imported my contacts, assigned ringtones to them, started building up a library of music and movies. Making it my own.
When I returned to Australia, I bought something, I dunno, an ice cream, a drink, a packet of chips, that had a voucher for a free ringtone. Great, I thought, I can assign a cool ringtone to one of my contacts, rather than the standard ones supplied with the iPhone.
So I went to the website, entered my code number, my phone number, a few details, clicked ok on the terms and conditions, and hit the "Download Free Ringtone" button. I got an error message, and figured that the ringtone didn't work with the iPhone or there was some other problem. Oh well, didn't cost me nothing. And I forgot about it.
The iPhone was on my regular Telstra plan, which hadn't included internet access. Telstra didn't sell the iPhone at that stage, so they didn't have the plans in place to support all the features of the iPhone, the Google maps, the email etc. Not without charging extra for data.
However, once the international calls from Feb-April had been charged, it worked out that I was still using data and being charged for it. Just using the weather app would download a block of data. I'd drive around the city and the iPhone would chatter into electronic life, causimg a burst of interference on the radio and costing me another dollar or so.
Over the coming months, I tightened everything down as far as it would go, short of actually turning off the phone functions, but still I was being charged an alarming amount for data.
When the iPhone 3G was released last winter, I wondered about upgrading. But the frenzy was such that there were long delays for handsets, and prices were high. And still I was paying about a hundred dollars a month. For an iPhone I couldn't upgrade because that would break the software hack.
Eventually I cracked. My codriver bought a 3G iPhone and filled it up with all these cool apps. Things my phone couldn't do.
I went into Telstra and got a new iPhone. On a forty dollar plan, with 150 Megs each month.
But still my phone bills were twice what they should have been.
I took a look at the latest one yesterday. The phone plan and the data looked about right, but there were eight items listed at five dollars a shot:
MBLOX MTDADA. What the heck was this? I'd figured that these charges were for data blocks, but when I went googling for information, i found a different story.
Turns out that they were premium rate SMS messages I'd been supposedly receiving. Messages with no content, so they never showed up on my phone. It was all linked to that "free ringtone" offer of many months ago. When I clicked the terms and conditions box, it was for continued access to some website, and I was to pay for the subscription through premium SMS charges.
Very clever. I never entered my credit card number, so I didn't think I was going to have to pay for the ringtone, even if it didn't work.
Even if I never accessed the subscription site, I was still being charged for it. With no chance of a refund.
The site had been fined for not supplying details of how to unsubscribe, and even when i finally worked out what was going on, I still had to jump through hoops to get out of it. The method that finally worked was to text "STOP" to the SMS number. And I suspect that I'm still going to be charged the next week's subscription while they process my request.
There's a lot on the Internet, actually. I'm not the only person been suckered into this scam. I doubt there's too many people happy to pay ten dollars a week for ringtones, screensavers, games and so on.
So, may I ask my readers to check out their phone bills. If you see MBLOX or MTDADA anywhere on the statement, and you aren't a regular traveller to a DaDa.net website for fresh ringtones, cancel the subscription immediately.
I set it up, imported my contacts, assigned ringtones to them, started building up a library of music and movies. Making it my own.
When I returned to Australia, I bought something, I dunno, an ice cream, a drink, a packet of chips, that had a voucher for a free ringtone. Great, I thought, I can assign a cool ringtone to one of my contacts, rather than the standard ones supplied with the iPhone.
So I went to the website, entered my code number, my phone number, a few details, clicked ok on the terms and conditions, and hit the "Download Free Ringtone" button. I got an error message, and figured that the ringtone didn't work with the iPhone or there was some other problem. Oh well, didn't cost me nothing. And I forgot about it.
The iPhone was on my regular Telstra plan, which hadn't included internet access. Telstra didn't sell the iPhone at that stage, so they didn't have the plans in place to support all the features of the iPhone, the Google maps, the email etc. Not without charging extra for data.
However, once the international calls from Feb-April had been charged, it worked out that I was still using data and being charged for it. Just using the weather app would download a block of data. I'd drive around the city and the iPhone would chatter into electronic life, causimg a burst of interference on the radio and costing me another dollar or so.
Over the coming months, I tightened everything down as far as it would go, short of actually turning off the phone functions, but still I was being charged an alarming amount for data.
When the iPhone 3G was released last winter, I wondered about upgrading. But the frenzy was such that there were long delays for handsets, and prices were high. And still I was paying about a hundred dollars a month. For an iPhone I couldn't upgrade because that would break the software hack.
Eventually I cracked. My codriver bought a 3G iPhone and filled it up with all these cool apps. Things my phone couldn't do.
I went into Telstra and got a new iPhone. On a forty dollar plan, with 150 Megs each month.
But still my phone bills were twice what they should have been.
I took a look at the latest one yesterday. The phone plan and the data looked about right, but there were eight items listed at five dollars a shot:
MBLOX MTDADA. What the heck was this? I'd figured that these charges were for data blocks, but when I went googling for information, i found a different story.
Turns out that they were premium rate SMS messages I'd been supposedly receiving. Messages with no content, so they never showed up on my phone. It was all linked to that "free ringtone" offer of many months ago. When I clicked the terms and conditions box, it was for continued access to some website, and I was to pay for the subscription through premium SMS charges.
Very clever. I never entered my credit card number, so I didn't think I was going to have to pay for the ringtone, even if it didn't work.
Even if I never accessed the subscription site, I was still being charged for it. With no chance of a refund.
The site had been fined for not supplying details of how to unsubscribe, and even when i finally worked out what was going on, I still had to jump through hoops to get out of it. The method that finally worked was to text "STOP" to the SMS number. And I suspect that I'm still going to be charged the next week's subscription while they process my request.
There's a lot on the Internet, actually. I'm not the only person been suckered into this scam. I doubt there's too many people happy to pay ten dollars a week for ringtones, screensavers, games and so on.
So, may I ask my readers to check out their phone bills. If you see MBLOX or MTDADA anywhere on the statement, and you aren't a regular traveller to a DaDa.net website for fresh ringtones, cancel the subscription immediately.
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no subject
Date: 2009-03-23 03:58 pm (UTC)