Text to landline -unfair money grab

This is not a service offered by one's phone company. It is a web company in the USA that provides the 'service'. Telemessage.

How it works: a SMS text is sent to the landline number and the receiver's phone rings, then an autotron voice delivers the message. Both the sender and receiver are charged for the call.

Your local phone company can not turn the 'service' off. From what I have read so far, you have to contact the website, supply your land line number and request it be blocked. No opt out option from utilities on this one. I got my first call today and fortunately I hung up as soon as I heard 'you have been sent a text'. If it had have gone to my phone messaging service, I would have been charged for the text. The phone company is going to make lots of money on this once the telemarketers gear up. Unfair and Nasty.

 

Can you decline to pay this charge? You didn't order it nor did you agree with costs. Something like this seems illegal to me (at least here in Europe).

hqsec

 

I don't see how anyone can charge you for incoming calls.
Mrk

 

A few important facts to note:

Europe...
No additional charge for incoming texts (so far).

From Tripadvisor in the USA...
There are no FREE incoming calls in the USA. All calls cost, whether they are outgoing OR incoming. Additionally, there are no separate rates for placing calls to landlines or cell phones; both cost the same amount. However, some providers, like Sprint/Nextel have limits on the number of calls you can make to 'land line' phones after which a 'per minute' surcharge applies.

Canada/USA...
TELUS has announced that, as of May 1st, 2013 the cost of a text message sent to a US number while in Canada will increase 15 cents to 40c per SMS. The company began alerting its customers via text and email yesterday, indicating that the change is due to increased costs of doing business with the carriers in the United States. Domestic rates for those without any text plan remains the same at 25c/SMS, while international texts originating in the US or outside North America remain 60c each.

The other kicker is that TELUS is discontinuing US numbers as part of its “domestic” text package plans, so an add-on is now necessary to avoid paying overages. Received messages will continue to be 25c each while in Canada and 60c when outside the country, but having a $5 or $10 add-on makes incoming text messages free. Rogers and Bell charge 35c per message to the US, and both carriers provide various packages between $5 and $15 for add-ons.

Asia..
Varies, but mostly no additional charges apparent. Could be a hidden cost.

 

OK, I didn't know about this practice in USA.

So all calls in USA get charged twice? Caller and receiver of call, they both pay for call (let's say it's landline to landline call)? I don't know how customers in Europe would react to such practice.

hqsec

 

I know

 

Riots, RPGs, all sorts of good things.
Mrk

 

I'm in Europe but,
why would they be charged twice the USA? They could be charged only once, with the caller and receiver paying half the amount. Which is not a bad logic in my view.

 

Well in the USA the "Job Creators" SNARK are in charge.

 

I don't know; from what I've seen it's standard practice to charge cellphone users for incoming AND outgoing texts. Granted, many people just get an unlimited plan so it doesn't matter. But, if you have no plan (and thus get charged per text) you will be charged either way. If you're on a fixed number, incoming and outgoing messages will count towards it.

At least, that's how AT&T does it. Maybe it's different for other carriers.

 

Yes that's true but I guess that once both sides are willing to pay, they can raise those half price charges (it would still be cheaper than paying "whole" cost) and earn more...
And there is also a problem of unwanted calls/messages being delivered to you (see original post). How can you protect yourself against those unneeded costs?

hqsec

 

so is there some info somewhere that definitively says a receiver in the U.S. will receive a charge? I see Spring and other mobile services have txt to landline but they apparently do not charge the receiver, only the sender.

Also are the US companies doing this over the WWW? I went to a TELUS site but it lists only Canada.

 

US Utilities...

Verizon charges 1 cent, 5 cents or 10 cents per message, depending upon the plan. Updated 2013: From support Verizon dot com: All plans (except upgraded texting plans)... Each text message sent or received is $0.20 each. Text messages sent to other countries are $0.25 per text sent and $0.20 per text received.

AT&T charges 20 cents per message.
Sprint charges 10 cents per message (or can have all of their text messages included for free, depending upon the plan).
T-Mobile charges 5 cents per message on incoming messages, and 10 cents per message on outgoing messages.

NOTE: There are no text message plans for land lines, upgraded or otherwise. You get charged for the incoming text messages.

The website Telemessaging is the one that I know about, however there are probably others. Sending them your information to get your home number blocked is an act of faith. I do not know how ethical they are.

 

If I make a call, I pay.
If I send a sms, I pay.

Why would I need to pay when someone ring me or send me a sms!

It shouldn't matter if it is landline -> mobile or mobile -> landline or whatever. Only the caller should pay. Why make things more confusing than they already are.

 

Because in this confusion you can get more money from your customers...

hqsec

 

Yes that's always the reason. But I probably wouldn't accept it even if I would be happy with the operator otherwise. And start to check what the competition has to offer.

 

http://support.verizonwireless.com/support/faqs/TXTmessaging/faq_texttolandline.html

 

I checked Sprint but could not find anything definitive as far as costs for txt msgs received for land line owners.

 

Text to Landline is a service offered by many mobile phone carriers, predominantly US and Canada. It allows the mobile user to send SMS to landline destinations and have the message delivered as a voice call via text to speech software.

Some mobile carriers offer it as a feature of the mobile text messaging package, while other mobile carriers charge the mobile sender of the message a premium fee to send the message.

There is never a charge to the landline recipient to answer or receive a text to landline call.

TeleMessage, is a technology partner of the mobile carriers, that helps them to offer this service.

 

That is only partially true. It depends on the telecommunications regulations that are implemented by a specific country. The USA is not the centre of the universe. As a land line does not include a plan it is assumed exempt.

There is also the annoyance factor. British Ielecom offers landline users an opt out process when it comes to text messaging, though it is difficult to find. There are overseas operators who call landlines at all hours of the night and day with texts messages. Many of them are call centres. Canada is saturated with these nuisance calls from Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. Charges or not the practice is obscene.