The three top U.S network carriers have agreed to eliminate fees charged for spam messages, also called “mobile cramming.”
According to William Sorrell, Attorney General of Vermont, three of the top network carriers in the U.S. -- Sprint, AT&T, and T-Mobile -- all agreed to stop charging their subscribers for spam messages sent by a third party.
Sorrell works on the initiative with other attorney generals from 44 other states.
The giant carriers will stop charging for “premium short messaging service” (PSMS), which is considered the main reason for unauthorized billing charges that is included on mobile phone bills in what they call “mobile cramming.”
On Thursday, Sorell released a statement saying, “This is a victory for cell phone users in Vermont and across the nation.” He added, “We are pleased that AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile have decided to stop the flow of money from the pockets of ordinary people to the bank accounts of scam artists. We're hopeful the other carriers will soon follow their lead.”
However, if you will notice, Verizon, another leading network carrier, did not pledge to remove charges for spam messages. The company, in defense, told CNET that they refused doing what the other leading network carriers did is because they are currently in the process of “winding down” its PSMS.
William Peterson, Verizon’s general counsel, said in a statement, “While we don’t agree with all the Attorney General’s allegations, we respect his efforts in this area. For years, Verizon has been vigilant in protecting our customers from bad actors. There have been numerous times we have terminated programs and in some cases have taken aggressive legal action in order to ensure our customers were protected. Since premium messaging was first introduced, technology advances and smartphone adoption have dramatically changed the way customers access information.”
