MonsterMob's Unethical Unsolicited Marketing
For the second time I received a message in my WAP Push Inbox on my phone. I’m no expert in this technology but I set my phone to ‘prompt’ me before receiving these messages after I got the first a few weeks ago and yet this one still got through.
The reason I asked for the prompt is simple. I was intrigued by the message and clicked through only to discover that I’d probably just signed up for some ridiculous download club for ringtones and other teen phone nonsense.
The message I got today read: “FREE> Music Downloads!” and was linked to an opt-in page on http://www.mob.tv/ A browse on their website shows their address to be MonsterMob, 76 Church Street , Lancaster , LA1 1ET.
Thing is, I’ve subscribed to the telephone preference service and had assumed this protected me from this sort of intrusion. When I find the time I shall be contacting MonsterMob to demand an explanation as to how they can do this. Full correspondence on this will be maintained on this blog. A Technorati search doesn’t really yield much on this company other than suggesting it’s a burgeoning and successful business.
I just don’t like these tactics. You click on the link and suddenly you’re signed up … little T&C messages whilst hinting at some kind of compliance actually do nothing to signpost the fact that you’re about to haemorrhage money through your phone bill for a load of gimmicky and smutty junk. £3 per week might not sound much but that’s nearly £160 a year and for what,”full track music downloads 2 ur moby” apparently. Well, for £0.79 I can download full tracks to my iTunes and don’t need a subscription. I can port these over to my phone, if I wanted, using a bit of Bluetooth trickery, so what’s the point? On the 3rd August I sent a STOP command and was told this had “been processed and you have been unsubscribed from THEMOB” … is this different to MonsterMob? Why do T-Mobile have no apparent control over this crap?
The reason I asked for the prompt is simple. I was intrigued by the message and clicked through only to discover that I’d probably just signed up for some ridiculous download club for ringtones and other teen phone nonsense.
The message I got today read: “FREE> Music Downloads!” and was linked to an opt-in page on http://www.mob.tv/ A browse on their website shows their address to be MonsterMob, 76 Church Street , Lancaster , LA1 1ET.
Thing is, I’ve subscribed to the telephone preference service and had assumed this protected me from this sort of intrusion. When I find the time I shall be contacting MonsterMob to demand an explanation as to how they can do this. Full correspondence on this will be maintained on this blog. A Technorati search doesn’t really yield much on this company other than suggesting it’s a burgeoning and successful business.
I just don’t like these tactics. You click on the link and suddenly you’re signed up … little T&C messages whilst hinting at some kind of compliance actually do nothing to signpost the fact that you’re about to haemorrhage money through your phone bill for a load of gimmicky and smutty junk. £3 per week might not sound much but that’s nearly £160 a year and for what,”full track music downloads 2 ur moby” apparently. Well, for £0.79 I can download full tracks to my iTunes and don’t need a subscription. I can port these over to my phone, if I wanted, using a bit of Bluetooth trickery, so what’s the point? On the 3rd August I sent a STOP command and was told this had “been processed and you have been unsubscribed from THEMOB” … is this different to MonsterMob? Why do T-Mobile have no apparent control over this crap?
1 comment:
I too have been the victim of inadvertent subscriptions. £12.50 is cost me a month or so back. Added to that I was simply deleting the messages (so as not to subscribe) and did not even get the benefit of the detritus I was paying through the nose for. I've have felt less angry if one of their company representatives had walked up to me in the street and mugged me.
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