Predicto.com a.K. A "PredictoMobile", which is located at http://www.predicto.com/, is scamming users.
I was at a particular "Points for Prizes" website named ProPrizes (located at http://www.proprizes.com/) and Predicto was one of the "offers" you could complete in order to get points which could in exchange be used to order prizes. This "ProPrizes" said in plain, easy-to-read neon green letters that this offer was "free".
So I get to the website, and it has me enter my cellphone number. Okay, I say. So I entered it.
Next thing I know, a timer with about 30 seconds on it counting down was telling me I had a "PIN" sent to my cellphone and to confirm it. Obviously, I didn't wait to see what happened if the timer ran out, so I entered it as quick as I could.
Next thing I know, I get about 4 text messages (!), and the first one says something at the end about "9.99"...
So I'm thinking, "What? How could they possibly charge me $9.99 without my explicit consent? I know I did not consent to an aberrant $9.99 charge." I didn't even think that it was possible for a 3rd-party company charge something to your phone bill without you accepting it through the phone company (in my case, Verizon).
Worried, I decided to look up the website on Google, and lo and behold there were numerous complaints about this particular "company" swindling money from users.
So the next thing I did was rush out and call their "support" number. I had a lady with a quite difficult-to-understand accent pick up the phone. I angrily went through the "cancellation" process with her (having to spell out all of my responses by using phrases such as "'a' for apple") and she told me that I would be receiving a check for $9.99. I was shocked to hear that the company could not just redact the charge, even though they somehow had the magical power to bypass customer authorization to PUT something onto my phone bill.
I am extremely upset and I hope that no one is ever tricked by this swindling company ever again.
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