![\"photo-3\"](\"\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/_d_improd_\/photo-31-200x300_f_improf_200x300.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\nMy wife and I have a shared\/family\/whatevertheycallit wireless plan with AT&T. A few months ago I noticed our wireless bill increased from its normal level of about $180 a month to over $250. \u00a0I expected it because I temporarily needed a Canadian data and voice plan while traveling. \u00a0I had to sign up for a month to use it for a few days and then cancel those plans after I finished my trip. \u00a0Of course, I forgot to cancel for about two weeks after the trip but the fees were pro-rated and I was credited the correct amount. Oddly, after I removed those plans, our bill never did drop to the previous level. \u00a0It remained about $10 higher than it was originally. \u00a0I just paid it. Then, AT&T announced a restructured data plan and changed the rate and so I was just paying the bill – I really never look at it. That is until this month when I actually did because I wanted to figure out what was going on. We got crammed. Not slammed. \u00a0CRAMMED. Slamming is what long distance companies used to do (still?) by changing your long distance carrier without your permission or knowledge. Cramming is similar except it happens via text . \u00a0You receive the text and the scumbags begin to charge you a monthly fee. In my case, I had TWO services charging me $9.99 a month, each. \u00a0Funny thing is that I didn’t catch it for THREE months and I NEVER received any Horoscope or Stock tips. (Of course they are not going to send you any because if you began to get a string of Horoscopes or Stock Tips then you would know you were subscribed to something, so these companies are literally STEALING your money and giving you NOTHING.)<\/p>\n
I’m confident that some readers are thinking – “E, you are an idiot of a colossal status. Just delete the texts and they can’t charge you. Dope.” \u00a0Ya’ know I probably would have said that too until last week. \u00a0You see, THAT is precisely how you get subscribed – by IGNORING the message. \u00a0Here…read this:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Notice that the message says…”To cancel, reply STOP.” \u00a0That means if you get this message, you are subscribed and you are paying $9.99 a month. If you respond STOP, the theory is that you will not be subscribed.<\/p>\n
These are not people with whom you have ever done business. \u00a0These are companies who snag phone numbers from online resources like website and social media – probably phone number databases – and fire off their text messages to the number they grab. Whenever I would get one, I would not ignore it but I would use AT&T’s Mark the Spot<\/strong> app which has a function to report spam texts. \u00a0I was being a good wireless citizen – If you see something, say something. And AT&T always thanked me with a follow up text.<\/p>\n Well guess what? \u00a0The carriers CAN stop it, but they don’t because they make money with these fraudulent texts – in some cases they get HALF! Yes, they DID refund my money (they will only refund THREE months of fraudulent subscriptions) and they DID set up a PIN control to prevent this from happening – we’ll see if it works.<\/p>\n Now, are you ready to get REALLY pissed? \u00a0Hamid Shojaee at\u00a0AZ Disruptors<\/a>\u00a0has produced a video that explains cramming and one alleged source of these texts.\u00a0There’s a dude – Jason Hope – who apparently is responsible for a lot of this crap. He’s not they only one I’m sure but he is becoming stratospherically wealthy through his devious and in my opinion, illegal activities. \u00a0One shocking claim by Shojaee is that Jason Hope is constructing a 100,000 sq ft. home in Scottsdale, AZ – TWICE the size of Bill Gates home. (Yes. ONE-HUNDRED-THOUSAND-SQUARE-FEET<\/strong>. \u00a0NOT a typo. That’s the claim.) Watch this video produced by\u00a0Hamid. Then check your cell phone bills and look for subscriptions – it’s not just AT&T – all carriers are subject to cramming. \u00a0Make sure you haven’t been crammed. [youtube]http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=F9MQAfh-bCE[\/youtube] More about cramming: http:\/\/www.kxan.com\/dpp\/news\/Cell_phone_scam<\/a> More reading about Jason Hope: http:\/\/www.valleyprblog.com\/pr-best-practices\/jason-hope\/<\/a> http:\/\/www.jasonhopegives.com\/<\/a> http:\/\/www.jasonhope.net\/<\/a> http:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/jasonrhope<\/a> (Looks like Jason has no connections.) https:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/jason_r_hope<\/a> (Looks like Jason has nothing to tweet about.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How often do you just pay your phone bill without even looking at it? My wife and I have a shared\/family\/whatevertheycallit wireless plan with AT&T.
\nA few months ago I noticed our wireless bill increased from its normal level of about $180 a month to over $250. That was expected and as usual, I just paid it. But there was something else going on that I didn’t catch for months…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3712,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[92,93,94,96],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-braindump","category-latest","category-media","category-socialfeeds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everettmarshall.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everettmarshall.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everettmarshall.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everettmarshall.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everettmarshall.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everettmarshall.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everettmarshall.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everettmarshall.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everettmarshall.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everettmarshall.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}