Have you heard of mobile cramming? You might not be familiar with the term but your phone bill might be. It’s a great scheme for crooks. The reason? They’re able to take money out of your wallet each and every month and many times they’re able to do it without you even knowing.
If you have a cell phone bill you get a monthly bill. How often do you skim over it? Do you check each charge diligently before you submit any payments? You may want to after this. Phone cramming gives crooks the ability to tack on small charges each month and they’re making a huge profit, an estimated two billion dollars.
“Malicious software that’s downloaded on your phone after you download an app that gets your phone number and somehow you’re signed up for some kind of service,” says Malini, a spokesperson for the Federal Trade commission.
The FTC is fed up with third party billing and wants wireless carriers to allow their customers the ability to block it, but the phone carriers are pushing back. Why? Well the companies say there is no need for that because they monitor their customers phone bills and they say they even alert customers through text messages about these fees, but there is another big reason they don’t want the FTC interfering. They make money off of this! In 2011 it was reported by the congressional budget office that phone carrier makes millions of dollars with the help of these crooks.
So the best practice would be scanning your phone bill each month to make sure no extra fee was added to your bill and check out user reviews before you download new apps.
