Cell phone spam
27 Aug 2006 - DaveWhat happened here…
I’d just left for work in the morning. As the construction on the bypass came up the cell phone buzzed. Common sense said let it buzz until the new traffic patterns were behind, after all it has voice mail.
Sure enough, when the phone was checked the voice mail label was flashing. The handy voice mail shortcut dialed to connect. But the voice that answered wasn’t someone I knew or expected. The voice was the carefully modulated marketing type. And unlike regular voice mail, the shortcuts to cut it short and delete the message didn’t work. After that message played there was another…and another. In frustration I powered the phone off because that appeared to be the only way to terminate the unsolicited message. When the phone powered back on the voice mail label was gone.
Later in the morning I checked the voice mail again to see if the junk was still there. The spam messages were gone but there was a voice message from a coworker who had called with a real problem. The voice message spam is worse than spam in email.
- The spam message was from Cingular and not some asshole selling penis enlargement pills. That made it worse.
- Talking with others the spam messages appear without buzzing the phone.
As cell phone plans go Cingular was and is the least costly for what we use. But when the contract runs out this time Cingular is history. I do not care if it costs more to go with another!