Mobile Spam, Part Two

The Continuing Saga…

After receiving an increasing amount of spam text messages, I decided to get those almost helpful and friendly folks over at T-Mobile on the horn to iron out that I didn’t want to be paying for Spam messages. The conversation went something like this:

Me: “Hi, this is Jonas, and I’m having an issue with my phone.”

T-Mobile Jeff: “Ok, what seems to be the problem?”

Me: “Well, I’ve been receiving Spam messages. I got one a few months back, and now I received two last month. As I pay by the message, there’s really no point in paying for Spam. Is there a way to block all the text messages on the phone?”

T-Mobile Jeff: “Spam?”

At this point, I’m starting to get that sinking feeling…

Me: “Spam, as in unwanted email.”

T-Mobile Jeff: “Oh. Are you sure you didn’t want the message?”

Me: “Yeah, absolutely sure. It was a solicitation for medications the first one, and the second time for under priced software from a shady distributor.”

T-Mobile Jeff: “You must have posted your cell phone number on the internet somewhere. That’s why you’re getting the messages.”

Now I really think that this guy must think he’s dealing with an idiot, but I feel like we’re not quite communicating.

Me: “Listen, I’ve never posted my cell phone number anywhere. I’ve never sent a text message to anyone, ever. Can we just disable the text messages for the account somehow?”

T-Mobile Jeff: “I can’t block it, but we can add a filter for the Spam.”

Somehow, now he understands the term.

Me: “Great, go ahead and do it."

T-Mobile Jeff: “No, you have to do it.”

Me: “Ok, how do I add the filter?”

T-Mobile Jeff: “You have to log on to the My T-Mobile site, and add a spam and keyword filter under Communication Tools.”

At this point Jeff tries to log on to the site and walk me through the process. The only difficulty is that that portion of the site is completely down. Believe it or not, I’ve been trying to log onto that portion of the site for the last three days, and it is consistently down.

Is T-Mobile deliberately trying to keep the Spam going so that they can get the text message fees? Why wouldn’t the Spam filter be on by default? They didn’t offer to take off the charges for the messages that I received. There’s also no way to totally disable the text messaging on the phone according to them. Let’s just say we can add this to the list of complaints, and why I wish I didn’t have a two year contract with them with over a year left.

--Jonas

Read the conclusion over here.