Following a complaint by the New York State Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman, Game Theory, a California company agreed to reform its business practices and pay $500,000 in penalties.  According to the Attorney General’s office, Game Theory sent deceptive text messages that scammed the people receiving the text messages into unwittingly enrolling in Game Theory’s text messaging service at a cost of $9.99 per month.  With cell phone bills so complicated and confusing to read, in many instances, many of the people, not realizing they had signed up for the service, never noticed the monthly cost on thier bill.  According to the Attorney General, Game Theory would send teasing emails, such as text messages saying that someone had a secret crush on the receiver of the text who was prompted to respond to the text without being aware that if they responded to the text, they also signed up for Game Theory’s premium text message service.

TIPS

Don’t respond to unsolicited email messages.  Even if it says to reply in a particular manner to avoid charges, don’t respond because you may only be authorizing the charges by doing so.  Merely delete the text messages.  Also check your cell phone bill carefully each bill for extra hidden charges which are sometimes added to your phone bill through a scam called “cramming” which you can read more about elsewhere on this website/blog.  Finally, never click on links in unsolicited text messages.  They can contain malware that can make you a victim of identity theft.