Consumer Group Accuses Sprint, Cingular Of ‘Cellular Cramming’

The Utility Consumers’ Action Network has filed a complaint with the California Public Utilities Commission against Sprint and Cingular, accusing the mobile-phone operators of charging subscribers for unwanted text messages and ringtones — a practice it refers to as “cellular cramming”.
“Cell phone customers should not be charged for ads sent to their phones by the carriers themselves, let alone any other advertiser. Sprint has apparently figured out a way where they can charge customers for advertisements and thus can use these spam ads to generate direct income. It is a troubling new paradigm where companies can charge customers each time they send an advertisement to that customer. Regulators need to stop this new rip-off in its tracks and put an end to unwanted text messages by preventing wireless companies from charging for this Cellular Cram”, stated Michael Shames, UCAN’s Executive Director.
Apparently when customers asked Sprint to stop spamming them it told them how to disable all messaging…
Personally, I’ve never used a mobile service where you had to pay to receive messages, so the business model strikes me as a little odd. If the whole charge of the message lay with the person sending it a lot of these problems would go away. Of course, the companies should be implementing policies against the spamming too…
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