Today I was in an IM conversation with a friend (and coworker) about cell phone plans and I logged into my AT&T Wireless account to check my plan details and I noticed my recent statement was about $10 higher than previous months.
Obviously, I was curious to why my cell phone bill spiked $10 and I checked the statement and found a “Mobile Purchase & Download” charge for $9.99:
What the Hell is that? I remember getting a few spam text messages about food recipes this past couple weeks, but I didn’t think much of it.
A quick Google search for ‘info-text-alert.com’ yields many complaints about fraudulent mobile phone charges.
So called AT&T and spoke to a customer service representative who credited back the $9.99 and put a block on any third-party subscriptions on my phone unless I enter a pin code to validate it.
How I even got signed up is beyond me. The only thing I can think of ever sending a text message to in order to get a text message back was a Comic-Con text message ‘scavenger hunt’ game promoting Fox’s Fringe TV show during Comic-Con. But that was free.
Anyway, make sure you check your cell phone statements for any billing anomalies. It’s easy to overlook them if you’re like me and have automatic bill payments.
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