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A contestant is seen here texting in an early round during the 6th Annual LG US National Texting Championship August 8, 2012 in New York's Times Square. (STAN HONDA/AFP/GettyImages)
- Never respond to unsolicited texts, including ones that read, “reply STOP to avoid charges”
-- Ignore Web links in unsolicited messages.
-- Advise children that “daily” text services such as horoscopes, text-of-the-day, love advice, and so on, incur extra charges
-- Check your phone bill and look for terms like “premium content” or “direct bill charge,” which are terms often used to mask unwanted services
-- Call your service provider and ask to have third-party charges blocked
In an investigation Game Theory LLC was found to have sent spam text messages to over 150,000 New Yorkers with links that signed the recipients up for texting servicing costing $9.99 a month.
The California-based mobile content company has agreed to pay $500,000 in penalties and exit the text messaging business, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced in a release Saturday.
“There is no legitimate purpose for scams that deceive New Yorkers, and we will continue the fight to protect people’s privacy and their hard earned money” Schneiderman said in the release. “As a result of this settlement, Game Theory is out of the texting business for good, and this corporation will be held accountable for its conduct.”
The recipients of the text messages often paid for the Game Theory texting services they did not use for months before they realized they had been signed up.The Epoch Times publishes in 35 countries and in 19 languages. Subscribe to our e-newsletter.
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