Anyone that watches television these days should see a deluge of advertisements for various products and services provided through cell phones, and the bulk of them, when text messaged, will charge you a subscription fee for said product or service.
Most of them are preying on ignorance, and it's unethical, but probably legal. They seem to imply that you can get them free in some, when you only get them free if you pay for the subscription, or other crap.
This isn't my complaint.
Recently, I've seen an advertisement saying, "Who makes the Playstation 3? Sony or Nintendo? Text A for (one of them) and B for (the other) to (some number) to win a PS3 and some games!" or something to that effect.
The actual advertisement I saw definitely stated you WILL win a Playstation 3 and games if you messaged the correct answer, and of course, that's very unlikely.
Additionally, from what I can find online, it appears to be a subscription service to enter some kind of monthly contest that charges you $10 a month for a chance to win a prize.
How is this even remotely legal?
Deception through omission of detail is unethical, but often on the legal side of the border.
Straight out lying-through-the-teeth can't possibly be a legal business practice, can it?
Off-topic, I don't see why it's legal to put the fine print at a size that is almost not legible on a big TV, and flash up a huge block of text for a few seconds at best.
I wanted to file a complaint with the FTC, but apparently, you need information such as the physical address of the business you're complaining about, and I've no clue what the name of the business is, let alone their address.
Just something that's been bugging me lately.
13 Sep 2007, 10:56 pm
