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<Duplicate post and will be locked. Please see any replies at .>
NOTE: THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED AS INFORMATION SHARING
Here is what I've recently learned (the hard way) about "Premium Messaging"/”Premium Text Messaging” charges of $9.99 that show up in the "Usage Charges" section of your monthly bill under Data (taken from an email from a Verizon Wireless Customer Service Rep):
"...Premium Text Messages are services offered by third party content providers. They can offer many different things such as: weather or news alerts, sports score alerts, horoscopes, jokes, and even traffic reports. They can also provide entertainment services such as: games, trivia, chat services, free ring tones, or as a part of social media for services provided through Facebook or other sites. You may also be familiar with television or radio programs that have you vote for your favorite artist by sending a text message to a short five or six digit code. Sending a text to those codes is how you get signed up for these services.
In order to remove it, you simply send a text message from that specific phone to that short code. (34135) In the body of the text, simply write the word Stop. Finally go ahead and send the message. Within a few minutes, you should receive a text back from that company stating that you have cancelled out of their subscription service.
...I recommend sending this text as soon as possible to avoid future charges. Judging by the date you supplied, they appear to charge on the 6th of every month."
What this boils down to is that Verizon is complicit in allowing 3rd parties to occur extra charges via their monthly billing, despite the fact that you may have not realized the text was an "opt out" type. If you read the texts that come in English, the method of opting out is specified, which in my case was replying to the text with just the word STOP – I was thereby opted out, BUT FOR JUST THAT SPECIFIC 3RD PARTY. You should then (IMMEDIATELY) call Verizon customer service at 1-800-922-0204 and request that “Premium Messaging” be blocked.
I believe you can also do this yourself at:
https://wbillpay.verizonwireless.com/vzw/accountholder/uc/UCServiceBlocks.action
You can also read about this subject at:
http://support.verizonwireless.com/faqs/Premium_TXT_and_MMS/faq_premium_txt_and_mms.html - pay special attention to item #4.
For those who say “you should have read your contract more clearly in the 1st place”: my father had died not long before I signed up with Verizon, and I was still in a fog, not really capable of absorbing a lot of information. I don’t remember reading the first such msg I got; I might have even deleted it before reading it completely because at 1st glance you can tell it's a solicitation. What that very brief, 1st glance doesn't scream out at you is the fact that this is something you must reply to opt out of.
Message was edited by: Maki
Message was edited by: Verizon Moderator