It’s one thing for a wireless operator to encourage its subscribers to use SMS text messaging services – the most profitable of wireless services, afterall. But, it’s a completely different (wrong) thing for a wireless provider to force its customer to accept incoming SMS text messages and consequently pay for them.
It’s unfortunate, but in the US, we get docked for every incoming SMS text message (whereas our IntoMobile Europe-team only pays for outgoing text messages). The problem is, T-Mobile has been forcing all its customers (those with text messaging bundles, those on a pay-per-text basis, and even those that don’t want anything to do with text messages) to accept incoming text messages. Other providers offer the option to turn off SMS text messaging features on individuals’ accounts, but T-Mobile doesn’t seem to believe in customer-service.
So, it looks like a group of Yankees is going to show the German-owned company just what we believe in. That is to say, a class-action lawsuit has been filed against T-Mobile for essentially forcing its customers to pay for a service they never wanted.
The suit states:
“T-Mobile refuses to disable the texting messaging feature on its customers’ accounts, even when the customer has no interest in sending, or, more importantly, receiving text messages.”
A few cents here and there might not matter to people now, but if SMS text message spam starts to pick up, it could result in some hefty forced-charges. Now this is a lawsuit we’re actually going to condone.
[Via: TechDirt]