Oh Celcom Again!

Recently I received a message from shortcode 18888.

The message reads:

Pelanggan celcom, service baru utk menyaksi video YouTube dgn mobile anda. Hantar ON YOU ke 33499 skg. Yuran Langganan FREE! **MP3 Ringtone, htr ON WM
From : 1888.

So, its OK la because subscription is FREE. I was so careless to not aware that it is a trap to make me poorer by RM 4.00 with an SMS from shortcode 33499.

I responded and sent the ON YOU. I received this:

RM0.00. Successful registration. No subscription fee. Price: RM 4.00/SMS, until cancelled. To cancel, send STOP to 33499. From :33499

My registration was succesful and on 9th April 2008 I receive a SMS RM4.00 : Famous: www.videomoby/bla,bla,bla,bla......


At first I was wondering who sent me those SMS. I saved in in my Browser Message Inbox. I receive a second SMS a few days later with the same heading. This time upon seeing the RM4.00, I decided not to save the message and deleted it. Only after the third SMS with the same format did I realise something must not be right. I check my In Box again and a message from shortcode 1888 revealed that it was from the service to watch YouTube which I registered for FREE. Now what the heck I am going to watch YouTube on my handphone and pay more charges for connecting my phone to the internet which on a pay per use basis is a 10 cents per Kb. I have already subscribed to Celcom Broadband which is also SUCKS (but I use it only when travelling) and also my Streamyx which is also not reliable (until today I can't get logged on to the internet for the last 4 days and still have to pay my monthly RM 88.00 - SUCKS Too).

Today 15th after receiving another SMS from short code 33499 which I deleted too, I checked back my SMSs and realised that I will be paying RM 4.00 unnecessarily for something that I won't be needing. I send back a SMS to shortcode 33499 with a message STOP which was sent at 2:38pm on 15-Apr-08. I am putting this as a record to see whether Celcom is efficient enough to respond to customers woes. If they rob me another RM 4.00 then I will consider this practice a scam.