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Have You Looked At Your Phone Bill Lately?

Of late, there has been a spate of advertising campaigns around the iPod, iPhone and Macbook. All you have to do it click on the ad, fill in the form and you qualify for the draw to win these state-of-the-art gizmos with no obligation what so ever. If you haven’t seen these ads and others like it, trust me, your kids surely have when they legally download music and videos for free.

Amongst the things you fill out in the form are your mobile number. And that’s where the fun starts.

In the last couple of months, you may have been getting SMS notices of this sale or that promotion. Occasionally you get a reminder of certain events that you can book for simply by returning an SMS to the sender. Most of the time, you’ve been disregarding these messages as spam without a second thought.

If you are one such person, take a close look at your latest phone bill. Look for a charge under “Premium Message”. Take a look at that figure. It’s probably not much but you’re paying for that. And so are hundreds of thousands of “subscribers” … unsuspecting subscribers.

The best part of this money spinner is that your kids are paying for it too and you may not have known it. Neither did they.

In spite of not consciously subscribing to this service and despite not using or even wanting it, you’re going to pay for it. The only way out of this “subscription” is to opt out, if and when you discover it. There are no refunds. Their TOCs have made sure of that.

Now you go scambling for all the past month’s phone bills that you tossed aside without checking for this inconspicuous little charge. It’s amazing when you total it up, isn’t it?

Now you wonder how this got by under your radar and how much more of this s**t exists.

All through the last year and this, I have been telling Wealth Academy students about how the credit card will be replaced by mobile comms in the future and how Telcos will become the Financial Insitutions of the future. Well, the future is now. Yesterday’s paper announced that you will be able to pay your bills and credit charges via your mobile phone by next year.

Guess what? Besides the credit “convenience”, you are also get tons of these inconveniences.

Welcome to the future! :))

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