Newbie
Posts: 2 
February 7th, 2006, 08:47 PM
This is a particularly nasty Scam so watch out!
The way this scam works is that a company in California (M-Qube) tricks you into giving them your cell phone text address, then once they have it, they send you unsolicited junk mail every day (SPAM), in the form of a "joke of the day", and charge you money for the priviledge of receiving the unwanted jokes. They charge $1.25 per joke and it amounts to about $25 to $30 per month. The good part is that you have no choice but to pay. How can they do that? Well they are in bed with Rogers, and the way the billing is done is that Rogers tacks the charges onto your cell phone bill under "Premium Services". So you have no choice but to pay for the junk mail or Rogers will cut off your cell phone service, and ultimately ruin your credit rating if you continue to try and defend your rights by not paying. Obviously Rogers gets a cut of the take for doing the "collections" and acting as the "enforcer".
Extortion is a criminal offense, which occurs when a person obtains money, behaviour, or other goods and/or services from another by wrongfully threatening or inflicting harm to this person, reputation, or property. (Wikpedia definition)
Does this Scam qualify as extortion? Well let's see...Someone is trying to make you pay them for nothing at all (SPAM qualifies as nothing.... or perhaps even less than nothing since it has a negative or nuisance value). But are they threatening you harm? Well, cutting off my cell phone would harm me, I need it to do business, and damaging my credit rating would most certainly harm me... I need it to get loans, or even to qualify to get cell phone service elsewhere. Yeah, looks like it fits the definition.
Edit : Rename to proper title.
This is a particularly nasty Scam so watch out!
The way this scam works is that a company in California (M-Qube) tricks you into giving them your cell phone text address, then once they have it, they send you unsolicited junk mail every day (SPAM), in the form of a "joke of the day", and charge you money for the priviledge of receiving the unwanted jokes. They charge $1.25 per joke and it amounts to about $25 to $30 per month. The good part is that you have no choice but to pay. How can they do that? Well they are in bed with Rogers, and the way the billing is done is that Rogers tacks the charges onto your cell phone bill under "Premium Services". So you have no choice but to pay for the junk mail or Rogers will cut off your cell phone service, and ultimately ruin your credit rating if you continue to try and defend your rights by not paying. Obviously Rogers gets a cut of the take for doing the "collections" and acting as the "enforcer".
Extortion is a criminal offense, which occurs when a person obtains money, behaviour, or other goods and/or services from another by wrongfully threatening or inflicting harm to this person, reputation, or property. (Wikpedia definition)
Does this Scam qualify as extortion? Well let's see...Someone is trying to make you pay them for nothing at all (SPAM qualifies as nothing.... or perhaps even less than nothing since it has a negative or nuisance value). But are they threatening you harm? Well, cutting off my cell phone would harm me, I need it to do business, and damaging my credit rating would most certainly harm me... I need it to get loans, or even to qualify to get cell phone service elsewhere. Yeah, looks like it fits the definition.
Edit : Rename to proper title.
Bright Spark
Posts: 289
Location: Montreal
Location: Montreal
February 8th, 2006, 06:23 PM
This is not a scam from Rogers. It's the samething for all wireless provider. It is also why I rename the thread to Wireless Providers' Scam.
This is just like SMS.CA or something like that. You once put your Mobile# online, submit, and then they start sending you txt everyday. That normall cost from $0.50 to $1.50 or more.
The way it work is, they will charge Rogers for X amount of $ and Rogers charge you back. Normally, it will appears on your bills as "premium service" or so.
I'm not trying to protect Rogers and any company since everyone are doing the same anyways.
Did X provider tell you to submit your# on website?
kalok~
This is not a scam from Rogers. It's the samething for all wireless provider. It is also why I rename the thread to Wireless Providers' Scam.
This is just like SMS.CA or something like that. You once put your Mobile# online, submit, and then they start sending you txt everyday. That normall cost from $0.50 to $1.50 or more.
The way it work is, they will charge Rogers for X amount of $ and Rogers charge you back. Normally, it will appears on your bills as "premium service" or so.
I'm not trying to protect Rogers and any company since everyone are doing the same anyways.
Did X provider tell you to submit your# on website?
kalok~
Newbie
Posts: 2
May 10th, 2006, 11:46 AM
I appreciate that you have moved this from Roger's area to something more generic, however I don't know what other wireless providers are doing, I only know what Rogers did to me.
M-Qube, a California company, got ahold of my cell phone number using T.V. advertising. There was an ad on T.V. in Calgary last August, stating that if you sent a text message from your cell phone to a certain address, they would send a free joke to your cell phone text box. That was fine. I got the free joke, and it should have ended there.
However, once M-Qube had my number, they continued to send jokes every day. Only now, they had a note attached to each joke saying that it cost $1.25.
I of course ignored this. I had not ordered anything, and so why should I pay? If a refrigerator showed up on your front lawn, and someone sent you a bill for it, would you pay? Of course not. This is called negative marketing or negative billing and it is not allowed in this country (Canada). I doubt if it is legal in the States either.
It's a scam, plain and simple. You cannot just send someone something which they did not order and then bill them, expecting them to pay for it. The nasty thing about this particular scam is that of course, if you continue to refuse to pay, eventually Rogers will cut off your cell phone, since the charges for the jokes are rolled up into your cell phone bill. It's disgusting. Make no mistake, Rogers is quite aggressive about trying to collect this and they will not back down. I wrote them emails and spoke with their customer service people many times about this, and their position is 1) M-Qube is a third party over which Rogers has no control (obviously a crock), and 2) if the charge is on your bill and you received the jokes then you better pay.
I wrote to the Ontario Ministry of Government Services, and finally, got some action. I received a snotty letter from Roger's "Office of the President", stating basically that they would do me a favour and take the charges off my bill. The letter included some other pap too including a lie alleging that I had subscribed to the joke service (which of couse I had not).
Bottom line - if someone is sending you unsolicited jokes to your cell phone mail box, you don't have to pay for them. (This can add up - they claimed I owed them $125.00 when I finally wrote to the Ministry). The charges will appear on your Rogers bill under "Premium Services".
Best of luck.
I appreciate that you have moved this from Roger's area to something more generic, however I don't know what other wireless providers are doing, I only know what Rogers did to me.
M-Qube, a California company, got ahold of my cell phone number using T.V. advertising. There was an ad on T.V. in Calgary last August, stating that if you sent a text message from your cell phone to a certain address, they would send a free joke to your cell phone text box. That was fine. I got the free joke, and it should have ended there.
However, once M-Qube had my number, they continued to send jokes every day. Only now, they had a note attached to each joke saying that it cost $1.25.
I of course ignored this. I had not ordered anything, and so why should I pay? If a refrigerator showed up on your front lawn, and someone sent you a bill for it, would you pay? Of course not. This is called negative marketing or negative billing and it is not allowed in this country (Canada). I doubt if it is legal in the States either.
It's a scam, plain and simple. You cannot just send someone something which they did not order and then bill them, expecting them to pay for it. The nasty thing about this particular scam is that of course, if you continue to refuse to pay, eventually Rogers will cut off your cell phone, since the charges for the jokes are rolled up into your cell phone bill. It's disgusting. Make no mistake, Rogers is quite aggressive about trying to collect this and they will not back down. I wrote them emails and spoke with their customer service people many times about this, and their position is 1) M-Qube is a third party over which Rogers has no control (obviously a crock), and 2) if the charge is on your bill and you received the jokes then you better pay.
I wrote to the Ontario Ministry of Government Services, and finally, got some action. I received a snotty letter from Roger's "Office of the President", stating basically that they would do me a favour and take the charges off my bill. The letter included some other pap too including a lie alleging that I had subscribed to the joke service (which of couse I had not).
Bottom line - if someone is sending you unsolicited jokes to your cell phone mail box, you don't have to pay for them. (This can add up - they claimed I owed them $125.00 when I finally wrote to the Ministry). The charges will appear on your Rogers bill under "Premium Services".
Best of luck.
