I first noticed this company when I reviewed my monthly cell phone bill for July and noticed it was $9.99 more than it should have been. I checked the details, and found four text messages received by my wife's cell phone (none ever sent to them before then, by the way) from predictomobile on 7/28/08 and an SMS charge for $9.99.
I found this company on the internet, called them, and their representative claimed that she took a survey where she would have supplied her cell number and checked a box (apparently with very fine print attached to it) signing up for their service. My wife says she has no recollection of ever having taken any such survey and that she would remember providing her cell number even if she had, and so this begs the question of exactly how it is this charge got on my bill in the first place.
I had my wife go ahead and text the "STOP" message (8/8) to this company as per their website to create some kind of evidence that we do not want this service, and then blocked the SMS feature on both our phones to prevent future issues from other such companies.
I did a bit of research, and found out that a number of others have had this problem, some of whom also never even took any such survey (and were never given back their money, by the way).
So, my interpretation is that this charge was unauthorized, and somebody—either at this company or some other individual that I can only imagine must be affiliated since this company profits from it—was going through a list of numbers and mysteriously signing people up for a service that they never agreed to.
And since my wireless provider is not responsible for this charge, I will have to pay my bill to keep my phone service and not have a bad mark on my credit report.
Short story is, I think this company swindled me, and I really hope that some lawyer with some sense about him - or herself will be up for a class-action lawsuit against this company to put them out of business. I don't care if I only get 20 cents back out of the $9.99 I'm out, if it means this company is punished.
Jon
Ooltewah, Tennessee
U.S.A.
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