Complaint Review: Alltel Wireless Predicto Mobile Gamerdata

For information, you don't need to use your cell-phone to get scammed. Buying a new cell phone may get you charged $9.99 per month (or more when you get multiple subscriptions) to Predicto because the cell phone number you get is a 'recycled' phone number.

'Recycled' phone number means that your new cell-phone number previously belonged to a subscriber who for any reasons (moving or avoiding Predicto Scam) decided to drop her old phone number. Recycled cell phone numbers may have lot of contracts attached to them.

Usually cell phone companies send lists of these cell phones to providers like Predicto to clear them from any contracts.

A class action was filed on 09/17/2009 against Predicto Mobile LLC in the Eastern District of Michigan (http://www.courthousenews.com/2009/09/18/Alltel2.pdf) for charging new cell-phone users and ignoring the lists sent by Alltell (Cell-phone company) who send Predicto updated lists of 'recycled' phones to clear from any contracts.

According to the document, Predicto just ignored lists of canceled cell-phones provided by Alltel but also Verizon, T-mobile, Sprint, and others cell-phone providers.

Predicto just transferred old subscribers bills to new subscribers: it's simmple and its their way to do business.

To my understanding any subscriber who subscribed to any cell-phone company who has a Predicto contract dated before the date their cell-phone contract started is entitled to a full refund including past due interests.

Hundreds of thousands subscribers are affected.

More information at http://news.findlaw.com/andrews/bt/tel/20090922/20090922_pratt.html

A new class action needs to be prepared for actual unauthorized billing without previous contract on cell-phone. We may have to hurry as I do not know if there will be enough money left to pay us back.

Please check old people bill as well as kids bills: look for $9.99 Premium text messaging in your detailed bills.

Please spread the words and the links.

you really shouldn't blame alltel for billing you for this charge since what happens is the company charges alltel for your subscription and in turn alltel bills you for it(sounds kinda like a credit card huh?) Anyways I don't understand why when alltel told you to send that "STOP" message to the company you continued to blame alltel. I'm not saying you didn't get scammed here but its probably best for you to just cut your losses and not sue them especially since alltel credited your bill. You got all your money back. If anything your post shows how much alltel is willing to work for their customers.

I work for a local cell phone provider and we have been hit with LOTS of customers calling because they have a $9.99 Predicto Mobile charge on their bill. At first we kept telling the customers they had to of done SOMETHING that brought these charges about. After numerous amounts of calls we realized that somehow this must be a scam and the customers were being pulled into it without knowing.

I am a over-the-road trucker and I will have to keep closer tabs to my monthly bill huh? I have unlimited nationwide minutes so the cost is the same usually. Well that unless I enter into a bad roaming area or Canada which then the bill will be higher.

But here is my suggestion....I use to get unauthorized chain textmail messages or someone that use to have this phone number text messages me once in awhile which got old fast. I do not have unlimited text and hate texting. So I cancelled and blocked all text messages.

Problem solved. So if I ever see a charge for a service like this I can come back to Alltel and say well boys you are going to have to eat that charge since I don't have text message feature authorized on this phone.

Seems easy to me.

What's sad is your refusal to take responsibility for what you did. The bottom line here is you DID do something that signed you up for those services. There is no other way they would appear on your bill. Just own up to your error and move on.

You feel scammed. Yes, I understand that, but the company that is billing you can quickly produce the records that show you authorized this. Doubt that? Then take them to court. Of course you'd probably (almost certainly) lose and it would cost you a lot more than the 9.99 for a few months for the service you DID request.

You don't like my responses? I don't care. I only tell the truth even though it's hard for many people to hear.

Obviously you are not even reading the post correctly. I DID NOT receive anything to read....no terms and conditions, no agreement, no nothing. My complaint is that someone - NOT ME - submitted my cell number to the scam companies, and Alltel participated in the scheme by billing for unauthorized charges.
I DID NOT cruise the internet and inadvertently sign up for something, I DID NOT recieve a text or respond to a text did not receive an offer or accept an offer.
I DO NOT surf the web and reply to advertisements ....ever
I DO NOT watch TV and text a number shown on a commercial ....ever
I DO NOT call 411 numbers....ever
I DO NOT enter my cell phone number on anything...ever.......
I don't know what using your phone in crowded or noisy areas has to do with anything, but I am disabled, and at home only leaving for Dr. Appts. and never find myself in a crowded, noisy situation so this never happened either...(I think you are reaching on this one).
I DID google the companies that appeared on my bill and found the same complaints over and over and over....not just happening to me my friend.
I DID call my cell phone company and I DID tell them I DID NOT do it because I DID NOT DO IT!!!! SIMPLE AS THAT


The reason for my post was to warn others to check their bills, because if this happened to be 3 times, it can happen to other unsuspecting customers who may not be going over their outrageous cell phone bills line by line. If I had of signed up for this service inadvertently or intentionally, I would not have a compaint to voice here.... my complaint is that I DID NOT sign up for these services. If you would check the complaints regarding both of these companies on this rip off report website, you will find that I am not the only one that has been a victim of this SCAM. I filed a rip off report to warn others so they will not un knowingly become a paying victim of this scheme. I also have a gripe with Alltel trying to convince us all that "they have nothing to do with it"....please if they have nothing to do with it then how are they billing for these scam companies and why are they in business with companies who are illegally cramming?

So Mr. Blake and Bike Bryan, what are you being paid to try to make people with valid complaint look like fools? It's obvious that you are on this site repeatedly trying to convince the public that the very people filing the complaints are the real problem and not the companies who are doing wrong. What's in it for you? Hope you never experience being scammed....Karma's a B!

Apparently you didn't read everything.

There are several ways to get signed up for these text alerts of Gamerdata and PredictoMobile.

1) You are on the web surfing and you see an advertisement of some sort. You click on that advertisement. The advertisement intrests you but for you to proceede, you must enter your cell phone number. When you do this, it WILL send you a text with a code, you then take that code and place it back in the advertisement and then follow the steps. One of the steps, it makes you agree to to the "Terms & Conditions" to proceede. The "Terms & Conditions" information advises you that it will bill your Cell Phone a certain amount as well as that you are authorized to agree to the "Terms & Conditions." - Problem is, NO ONE reads the "Terms and Conditions" information. Also, when signing up, the advertisementg info tells you multiple times that it is going to charge you as well as ALL text messages that you get also advises you of this .. The most common websites to find these advertisements are "MySpace.com" "FaceBook.com" "YouTube.com" "PhotoBucket.com" and many many more. How do you think those sites are free and they make sooo much money?? Gees!

2) You are watching TV and you see a commercial and it states to send a text to a number on the commercial.

3) Calling the free 411 number. How is that free? By offering stuff such as this. It is a computer automated voice response system so when it is doing the offer, if someone (even in the background) says YES, the automated voice response system will think that you agreed to it.

There are several ways to get signed up for these.

Rules of thumb.
* Do not enter your cell phone number on to any website.
* Make sure that the people on your account is able to be a responsible adult
* When in crowded or noisey areas, do no not use your phone.

If worse comes to worse, if you Google the charge, you will find the website for that advertisement and then call that company and talk to them like an adult and they will be more than happy to assist you. Do not call your wireless provider saying you did not do it. If you didn't do it or someone on your account didn't do then the charge would not be there.

Simple as that.

The last rebuttal is completely inaccurate, I had several text messages delivered to my phone within minutes of turning it on the first time. One was a confirmation message from gamerdata saying that I had filled something out online requesting the service ($9.99 a month), which I did NOT, and it requested a confirmation text message to begin the actual service. The second message was the first message of the service with some game cheat codes or some nonsense. Well I can guarantee that I didn't reply to the first text either with a confirmation message, and I was wondering what this was all about so I did a search online and realized what the site was, how much it costed, and how much of a scam the whole thing is. Haven't called alltel yet but I am going to and hopefully they'll refund me that 9.99. I ordered my phones through LetsTalk.com, perhaps it is this site selling the new phone numbers for phones it sells to these shady companies and getting kickbacks for it? Where have other people got their phones from? Something to think about. And for the last poster....I am very computer savvy, I build my own computers for myself and friends & family so I would very much know if I accidentally did something stupid and signed up for some text message service. It DID NOT happen, regardless of what you may think. And I believe the original poster when they said they did not either, there is scam going on here, hopefully we can eventually get to the bottom of it.

I'm sorry, but you DID do something that resulted in those charges appearing on your bill. You may not know what you did, or know that what you were doing would result in this, but that is not Predictomobile's fault - it's all YOURS.

Report them. Take them to court. Go ahead and waste your time and money. These companies have had all this threatened and done to them and guess what? When push came to shove, THEY won. They have always produced records showing the customer did sign up.

So you want to waste time and money? Go ahead. Or just own up to what you did, pay for it, cancel the service and pay more attention to what you are doing in the future. That's the moral and correct thing to do.

I'm sorry, but you DID do something that resulted in those charges appearing on your bill. You may not know what you did, or know that what you were doing would result in this, but that is not Predictomobile's fault - it's all YOURS.

Report them. Take them to court. Go ahead and waste your time and money. These companies have had all this threatened and done to them and guess what? When push came to shove, THEY won. They have always produced records showing the customer did sign up.

So you want to waste time and money? Go ahead. Or just own up to what you did, pay for it, cancel the service and pay more attention to what you are doing in the future. That's the moral and correct thing to do.

I'm sorry, but you DID do something that resulted in those charges appearing on your bill. You may not know what you did, or know that what you were doing would result in this, but that is not Predictomobile's fault - it's all YOURS.

Report them. Take them to court. Go ahead and waste your time and money. These companies have had all this threatened and done to them and guess what? When push came to shove, THEY won. They have always produced records showing the customer did sign up.

So you want to waste time and money? Go ahead. Or just own up to what you did, pay for it, cancel the service and pay more attention to what you are doing in the future. That's the moral and correct thing to do.

I am not stupid, I am paying attention, and this is how I caught onto this scheme. I have NEVER received any communication from either of these two companies. I DID NOT provide either of them with my cell phone number. I DID NOT sign up for this service or ever purchase ringtones for my phone, ( I wouldn't even know where to begin to do this). I rarely use my cell phone (only when I leave my home a few times a month) and use text messaging only 1 or 2 times a month, so I would certainly recognize a text, agreement or any other communication from either of these companies. Someone is providing these companies with my information....and it is not me!! If you google predicto mobile, you will quickly find that I am not the only person that has experienced these charges without signing up for the service.
And...to say Alltel has nothing to do with it is ridiculous.....they are collecting the money for these companies, they should take some responsibility for making sure their customers are not scammed by these services instead of participating in the scheme!!
Search rip off reports, and google these services, everyone should be paying attention to their cell phone bill because apparently I am not the only victim of these companies to have these illegal fraudlent charges called "cramming". And I have reported it to the Attorney General as well as the FCC.

Are you signing up for those websites that offer Free Ringtones? Read the terms and conditions...by signing up for those free ringtones you are agreeing to a monthly membership with that site..it's the same with the gaming sites. The only way these companies can get your cell phone # is if you provide it to them.

Alltel has notthing to do with these sites You gets billed (with your permission) to your bill but it goes to the site you signed up for.

We are sorry to hear about your experience. Please note that we at PredictoMobile take customer satisfaction very seriously and would like address any concerns. You can call us 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at 800-360-0518 so that we can resolve your inquiry. Keep in mind, our toll-free customer service number is also posted on our website as well as included in SMS messages sent to your phone.

Please note that a customer enrolls in our service by submitting their cell phone number on the PredictoMobile sign-up page which clearly explains the terms and conditions including price of service and billing to the cell phone. We then send the user a text message to their personal cell phone which again details this information. In order to activate the account, the user must then enter the PIN on our website or reply with a confirmation from their cell phone. The clear disclosures and double opt-in process ensures high levels of consumer protection and satisfaction. In the event that someone wants to cancel the service one can simply text stop to 654654 or call Customer Service and they will assist you. Again, we look forward to speaking with you and resolving any concerns which you may have.

Sincerely,

Customer Service
PredictoMobile