Is it really that difficult for mobile content providers to try and work sensibly with customers, rather than trying to trick them into spending a few beans without appropriate warning?

Last week I received an anonymous WAP Push message. Opening it I was taken to something calling itself MobileTube with a logo that was clearly passing off. There was a page with quite a few videos on it, with a long scroll  bar. I clicked on one video, which was downloaded to my phone and turned out to have no sound and no apparent meaning either. Close browser.

The next day - note that, the next day - I get an SMS telling me I’ve been charged £1.50! Actually I get two SMSs, despite the fact I only downloaded one video. One was enough to see it was rubbish.

And again I get an anonymous WAP Push. Scrolling to the bottom of the page and there are terms and conditions, which says that downloading clips costs 150p. So you don’t see the £ sign on scanning it. Scam! Checking back again later, they had added a bit of text at the top of the page saying terms and conditions at end, with no internal link.

There’s a customer service number, but it’s not linked either, you have to note it down to call it.

And nowhere does it tell you where to send stop to, as the WAP Push has no originator. A google for “mobiletube” returned nothing relevant. Going to the URL in the WAP Push shows a site underdevelopment message in German.
Crazy Frog rides again - killing our industry!

This entry was posted on Monday, May 28th, 2007 at 11:57 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.