On 08/06/2012 10:39 AM, Nadav Har'El
wrote:
Reverse SMS billing is not exclusive to Israel, and I doubt it's an Israeli invention.On Sun, Aug 05, 2012, Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote about "Re: sms via icq with the new mobile companies":So not only check your bill carefully, but before you start sending lots of free SMSs, make sure it does not cost you to receive them.In Israel, you *do not* pay for incoming SMSs - it is the sender that pays for them.What can happen, however - is *fraud*: The cellular providers in Israel invented the trick of SMS "services", where you subscribe to some service (e.g., get a summary of the news once every day) and you pay for this service however much the service provider decides - often you pay per (incoming) SMS. A few years ago I did some work for an outfit that sent such reverse billing SMS. The company they sent them through required them to follow a double verification procedure before a new number could be added as a subscriber. Services are all listed on your cell phone bill, and removing them is as simple as calling the company listed there and telling them to stop the service.The problem is that much (if not 99%) of this concept is used not for legitimate services, but for fraud. E.g., you may find yourself unintentionally subscribed to a "service" that sends you random messages, or (in your case) messages sent over the web seemingly for free, and then bill you for 0.5 shekels, or even 50 shekels if they wish, for each such SMS. Nobody (especially not the cellular providers, who make a nice commission from the fraud) cares if you were never told that this service costs you money. Starting last year, one type of service, the one used for trivia games, is opt-in. Phoned are blocked by default. It is unbelievable that several years after this fraud technique became popular, the ministry of communication hasn't closed this loophole. The closest they have come to doing so was to force the cellular providers to let you tell them that you don't want "SMS services" (not the normal SMSs, just the paid services) and you can no longer be defrauded in this manner. -- Thanks, Uri http://bruck.co.il twitter http://twitter.com/ubruck identi.ca http://identi.ca/bruck Si fractum non sit, noli id reficere. |
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