How do those late night text commercials operate?

[Andrew8001]

You've all seen them, the "Text whatever to 55555 and receive a free ringtone.' What I am wondering is, how does this work on the company's end? How do you register a 5 digit number to receive texts? A little clarity would be awesome!

[joeattaboy1682]

You text them.

They text you back.

You get a free ringtone.

Then you get barraged with more ringtones, which you have to pay for, until you can figure out a way to get them to stop. At about $10 a pop.

Back in the Sixties, we had the Columbia Record Club. You joined for a dollar, and you got 10 free albums in the mail. And a new album or two would arrive every month, and if you didn't return it buy a certain day, you had to pay for it. You also had to buy at least six albums over two years to fulfill your obligation. If you tried to quit (even if you wanted to send the 10 "free" albums back), they would pretend not to hear you.

The ringtone scam is the same thing.

Avoid like the plague.

[G Whilikers]

The five and six digit text messaging numbers are called "shortcodes". Your company can rent one from the organization that assigns the numbers for $500 a month, or $1000 a month if you want to choose your own. You will also need to choose a company that will handle the incoming and outgoing text messages for you and deliver them to your service. (There is a list available at the CSCA web site). The pricing varies but it's usually a large monthly fee to have the service active plus a small fee per message. One company I looked at charges $2200 to sign up, $900 a month including the shortcode, and 6.2 cents or less per USA message. If you offer a premium service they also help you get the charge to appear on the customer's wireless bill.