Victim of SMS Spam and made to PAY Maxis

SIGH ..... Yups... I was a victim to SMS Spam for a few months without realizing that I was being charged RM0.50 for each SMS received. In fact I was pretty irritated by the daily SMSes that came in, sometimes there was two, sometimes three ... during Christmas last year there were easily seven or eight SMSes a day!

All the time I just DELETE lah! Wondering why so many people were sending SMSes to me.

Only after a few months, when I decided to scrutinize my Maxis Statement / Bill, when i came to realize that I was being CHARGED RM0.50 for each SMS received!!

Was certainly unhappy, and immediately called 123 (Maxis Help Line) to complaint and to ask for a Waiver as i did not subscribe to the SMS.

One of the initial questions from Maxis Customer Service was ... "Did
you Subscribe to this SMS Service?"

My immediate response was "NO-lah!!! Check my records, I've been an avid
and loyal user to Maxis for many years, and I don't subscribe to any other
services or even buy ring tones (err i make my own ring tones!:) )

Anyway, after a few more statements back and forth, Maxis said, we will Investigate.

Well ... after Two Months of Investigating (which i of course refused to pay the Bill for those SMS amount), Maxis Customer Service called again and politely declined to Waive the Bill. They said that from our investigations you subscribed for the service!

SIGH!! I spoke to two more persons at Maxis to request to Waive the Bill, as i didn't subscribe to any SMS service. (Repeat ... check my Records .. i ain't one of those that buy and subscribe stuff on my phone!!) But unfortunately it fell on deaf ears.

Why am I writing this? I dunno, read the below article in STAR today, and was hoping someone from the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission can help me lor!!! [I still have all my correspondences (email) with Maxis ... so if anyone can help me... i still have all my Black & White with me]

So guess who is this terrible terrible SPAMMER on my Maxis Phone?

Its known as SMS.ac Do you receive any Spam SMS from them?

Beware of SMS.ac

and Call Maxis Helpline to STOP those SMSes, if you're receiving them!!

[NEWS] : SMS spam bugging phone users

SMS “spam” offering ringtones, horoscopes, games, quizzes, contests, chat services and even professional advice by content providers is fast becoming a source of discontent and expense for mobile phone users.

Not only are these SMSes unwelcome but users are automatically charged up to RM4 if they fail to reply to decline the “service.”

Legal executive C.T. Wong, 48, said it was ridiculous that one had to spend money to reply to the SMS to decline the service offered.

She said the real shock came when she contacted her mobile telecommunications provider and was told that consumers had to bear with it because the Government approved it.

IT consultant Marvin Lee, 26, a victim of this tactic, said mobile prepaid users could fall prey to such a scheme and not even know it.

“There could be millions using prepaid services being blindly charged for such services and the sad thing is that they are unable to check their balance or charges to be aware of this,” he added.

Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission corporate communications head Adelina Iskandar said the commission was aware of this problem, and that investigations were under way.

A spokesperson with a leading telecommunications company said they provided a code to external content providers as part of “normal business” to enable them to offer their services to phone users.

“The code, however, does not allow content providers access to the telcos’ customer database,” he said.

A Maxis spokesman urged the public to report their grouses to the customer service centre. {yeah rite!}

A Celcom spokesman said they had mechanisms that interacted with their content providers to ensure they did not send spam.

Source

[tags : delephant fun stuff]