SendMe sends me a scam

Is is possible to sign up for a $9.99/month cell phone "Music Fan Club" simply by receiving a cryptic text message? That's what the folks at SendMe Mobile seem to be telling me.

I've heard of people getting cell phone spam, but yesterday marked the first time I've received any. Or at least that's what I thought it was.

Here's what the message from 77899 said: SendMe:Music fan Club:Ringtones & trivias@sendmemobile.com 10 credits & alerts $9.99/month+msg&data rates may apply txt help4help.txt stop2end. Download Now!

I didn't think much of it until I received a second text message today that appeared to be some sort of celebrity quiz. And then the alarm bells rang: A number of years ago when I did some contract for Google I ran across numerous attempts by companies to rip off consumers with worthless cell phone services such as celebrity quizzes.

I wasn't about to pay $9.99 per month for such garbage, and I wasn't about to send these folks a text message that would viewed as consent of some sort. So I called the company's customer service line.

To my surprise, a woman answered.

I told her I didn't want any more spam, and she looked up my "account" — and told me I would be charged $9.99 by Verizon for the service I had signed up for.

I told her I didn't sign up for such service, and she said she had confirmation from Saturday morning — at the time SendMe sent me the message I never responded to.

Once I apparently had her convinced that I hadn't confirmed any order for such a "subscription," she told me that someone who borrowed my phone must have done so. But not only did no one else have possession of my phone, but my phone also keeps track of text messages sent — and there was none to SendMe.

The woman ultimately did offer to send me a refund — a move I interpreted as an attempt to get me off the line. Not believing I'd ever see such a refund, I told her not to bill Verizon in the first place (after all, it was a weekend when I had supposedly confirmed the subscription).

But that would be against the law, she told me. Once her company bills the phone carrier, she said, it has no ability to reverse the charges.

But SendMe shouldn't be billing the phone company for services never ordered, I told her. But she said I did — probably while online. Where online? I asked her. She said she couldn't say. I've done enough research to know how this company operates — usually by getting people to take quizzes and the like and expecting that they won't read the fine print when they provide their cell phone number in order to get the results. But I always read the fine print, because I know how these scams work. In any case, it has been months since I've taken any online quiz or anything like that, and neither have I provided my cell phone number to any strangers other than prospective employers.

And so it went. Next step: I wrote to Verizon to make it clear that such charges were never authorized. I expect Verizon will do the right thing, but we'll see what happens next.

Update: As promised, Verizon responded to my e-mail within 24 hours. The person I talked to said the $9.99 charge would be removed even before the bill comes, so kudos to the phone company. And while he couldn't say anything specifically about SendMe, he did say that Verizon is investigating various "premium text" companies to make certain they're dealing in an honest manner.

I assured him that SendMe is not.

Punctuation matters

What a difference a quotation mark makes!

I was one of countless thousands who were fooled yesterday by the following quote attributed to Martin Luther King Jr.:

I will mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.

Because it expresses the sentiment of many of us who found ourselves at unease over some of the celebrations of Osama bin Laden's death, the quote rapidly spread. And I do mean rapidly — although its first appearance on the Web was sometime yesterday, by today it can be found on literally thousands of web sites and probably even more tweets and Facebook posts.

As it turns out, the first sentence wasn't written or uttered by King at all. So where did it come from? Apparently — and if this turns out to be a hoax I'll admit I was fooled a second time — it came from a Facebook user who was commenting on the celebrations and then backed up her comments with an accurate quote from King:

(Image and text copyright by Martin Luther King Jr., Facebook and Jessica D.; published here under fair-use provisions of U.S. copyright law.)

Notice the quote marks around the quotation (you can click on the image to make it readable). Yet when Jessica's friends reposted her comment, they apparently left off the quotes. It was Jessica who mourned the loss of thousands, not the slain civil-rights leader.

Quotes are tiny, but they make a huge difference.

Why can't they do something about the "Cardholder Services" scam?

Still again today, I got a phone call from someone at "Cardholder Services," the company that wants to help me lower my interest rate on my credit card. I don't know exactly what "Cardholder Services" is offering, but there's no doubt it's a scam.

And again today, I filed a complaint with the National Do Not Call Registry, a program of the Federal Trade Commission.

Under federal law, the call was illegal, both for violating the do-not-call law and for using deception in the form of a spoofed caller ID number (this time the number was that of a condo maintenance office in Orlando). So was the call I received a month or so ago, and a month or so before that and a month or so before that. And so, likely, were the ones I have received at work, and the ones my co-workers have received. And so were the calls made to hundreds of people who have reported their misfortune to sites such as 800notes.com.

There have been times I've tried to find out who was making these rogue calls, but it isn't easy. What they want before they'll say much of anything is your credit-card number. If you start asking questions at all, they hang up. I did find out once (or at least I was told once) that the person I talked to was in Florida. I'm pretty sure, in any case, that they're based in the United States, since the operators speak with a standard Midwest U.S. accent.

Right now, though, my complaint isn't with the scammer, but with the federal authorities. Why can't they do something about this? Practically everyone in my office has been bothered by these people (a robocaller typically goes through the office numbers one by one), and I know others who have received calls at home. I had no trouble finding a dozen blog posts and newspaper articles from people who also had received calls. This isn't a small-scale, fly-by-night operation, and it has been going on for at least two years.

Pity the poor people who fall for the pitch, whatever it is (probably something that requires a hefty upfront fee for dubious services). Where is the FTC when we need it?

Euphemism of the day

After a jetliner ended its flight more than 600 feet beyond the end of a snowy runway at the Jackson, Wyo., airport today (nobody was hurt), American Airlines spokesman explained what happened: The plane "had a long rollout," he said.

A massive cave-in of political leadership

It was less than a week ago that politicians of both political parties were agreeing that it was time to get serious about the deficit, about getting our nation's fiscal house in order.

So what do they come up with? A tax-cut "compromise" that is more of a pander than anything else and will continue to sink the U.S. further into its sinkhole.

The "compromise" between President Obama and congressional Republicans makes no sense. Until yesterday, Obama was right to resist calls for restoring the old tax rates for the wealthy, and Republicans were right to insist on some degree of fiscal restraint in spending. So how do they "compromise"? Obama throws out his call for letting the George Bush tax cuts for the rich die, and the Republicans throw out any semblance of political integrity by caving in on unemployment benefits and other matters.

In other words, both sides have abandoned what they have previously considered as core principles. And for what? A budget that continues avoid taking responsibility for much of anything.

Obama is wrong. The Republicans are wrong. All claims of long-term vision ring hollow, and the tax deal they worked out is doomed to make matters worse in the long run. 

Fired for sound bites

Have we become so dependent on sound bites that we're incapable of listening to anything in context? It seems like it.

The most recent example, of course, is this week's firing of Juan Williams by NPR. Out of context, yeah, his fears about riding on planes with those in "Muslim garb" are indeed offensive, and his feelings were awkwardly stated. But in context, it's clear that Williams wasn't advocating religious profiling or suggesting discriminatory public policies. The personal feelings he expressed weren't rational ones, but they were human. The appearance is that NPR was looking for an excuse to fire and Williams and found one.

Williams' sacking isn't all that much different than the U.S. administration's firing of Ag employee Shirley Sherrod last summer. Yes, she admitted to what appeared to be a discriminatory episode, but the context was one deploring just that kind of thinking.

We live in an era where leaders, celebrities and even we regular folk are encouraged to be candid and honest, yet we pounce on people based on out-of-context remarks. (Another victim: Christine O'Donnell. There's no doubt she's unqualified to become a U.S. senator. And she may be loony — just not as loony as the out-of-context clips might indicate.) If we want openness, that's counterproductive.

It's time to start listening more carefully.

Mormons and Muslims have something new in common

You're in 21st-century America, and you're part of a religious movement that is often misunderstood and seen in a negative light. So what do you do? Start an ad campaign, of course, and back that up with an Internet presence.

A few weeks ago, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints launched TV ads in a few cities and also has more heavily promoted a web site, Mormon.org. Here's a sample of the approach:

More recently, a new Muslim group has started a campaign, My Faith My Voice:

Obviously, there are some different objectives at play. The Mormon campaign has a low-key proselytizing goal, while the Muslim campaign seems more aimed at countering marginalization or, worse, persecution (although the LDS ads, too, seem to have an anti-marginalization goal). The LDS campaign also is more clearly a higher-budget operation, carried out as it is by the denomination rather than as an independent, maybe ad hoc effort that the Muslim campaign is.

But the two campaigns have one thing in common, and that's this message: We might be different than you are in some ways, but we're normal people, and not all of us fit the stereotype you have of us. We're not a threat, and we're not here to force our religion on you. In fact, if you took the time to know us, you might even find we have a lot in common.

Are such ads effective in swaying public opinion? I don't know — but my guess is that in the long run they're effective only as long as they coincide with reality. You can advertise all you want that New Coke has a better flavor, but if people don't like it you may be forced to return to the classic version regardless of what you spend on ads. Similarly, if American Muslims don't clearly denounce the extremist elements of their religion, their words will ring hollow. Or if you visit your neighborhood LDS church and see you're the only one who couldn't find yourself on the cover of a 1950s Family Living magazine, the ads will seem like little more than bait-and-switch.

Most Americans don't personally know any Muslims, and outside the U.S. West, most Americans have no friends they know are Mormon. Such ads can be one step toward opening up understanding — but they'll fall flat if they don't match what people experience.