Twenty or more years earlier I had concluded that a number of politicians and religious leaders are the worst enemies of politics and religion. But I had considered Marxists, Marxist-Leninists and others of their ilk the worst enemies of capitalism.
“Why would businesspeople in free market economies operate against their livelihood?” I asked myself. “How do they do it?” To see whether the magazine’s remarkable assertion conformed to fact, I have since read thousands of wires and articles about economic and financial malfeasance in capitalist economies, all the while observing and evaluating my immediate surrounds.
And I find it indisputable that certain schemes conceived by some capitalists are detrimental to capitalism, the imperfect and frequently disappointing, yet best economic system humankind has ever come up with.
I am not referring to criminals like Bernie Madoff or to the financiers that devised credit default swaps, but to law-abiding and decent businesspersons who go to any lengths cutting corners, searching for loopholes and walking very thin lines to maximize their companies’ revenue and profits.
Allow me to illustrate with a Canadian example that might be happening elsewhere.
One day your cell phone gets a text message with a question. For instance: “What American Idol judge recently left the show?” Finding it meaningless, you don’t respond. Two or three days later you get another silly question. Text messages of this order keep coming. You think they are spam.
Your next bill includes a $20 charge with this description: Type of Usage: Event. Usage Description: 84040 Premium Text Trivia – For info call 1-866-257-4586. You used: 10 Messages.
Total cost: $20
You frown and think: “Somebody made a mistake.”
You call your service provider’s Customer Service. Three weeks or so earlier, you explain, someone started sending text messages to your cell phone. Nobody asked you if you wanted to receive them, you never asked to get them, and never responded. You have no idea how the messenger learned your number. Since they are the collecting agent for Text Trivia, you want him/her to tell you what is going on.
The Customer Representative tells you he/she can’t cancel the charge or order an investigation. You must call the phone number on your bill and type STOP.
Fuming, you call the number and get recorded instructions. Pressing keys you eventually reach a place where you type STOP.
But you can’t let it go, so two days later you call your service provider, complain in a more demanding tone and a different Customer Representative agrees to deduct $10.00 from the $20.00 charge ($11.30 once the tax is also subtracted).
Now curious, you research this scam on the Internet and find a number of interesting things. At the top of the list: Texting companies are not illegal; they are regulated by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).
According to press articles, many people have felt victimized by texting companies just because they took an IQ test on Facebook or played a quiz.
A CBC news piece dated October 30, 2009 says that a spokesman for the Commission stated that customers cannot be “duped” into receiving text messages merely by entering online contests or playing quizzes.
The spokesman also said that premium subscription services require customers to confirm their subscription twice to insure that they are aware of the cost per message, the frequency of messages as well as the opt-out information.
You never enter online contests or play quizzes, never asked for or confirmed a subscription, and by no means were warned about cost per message, their frequency or the opt-out information. So how did Text Trivia come across your cell number?
Mother of all mysteries.
You also learn in the CRTC website that you can file a complaint.
I know that certain Canadian service providers are staffed and managed by an overwhelming majority of good people. Why are they serving as collection agents for unscrupulous scammers? For a percentage? Can’t they see that their reputation is at least as important as their bottom lines?
Okay, getting a little testy here, but I’m not making this up.
A week ago I emailed an executive of my service provider and said that I would write this. It would be unfair, I added, not to give them the opportunity of expressing their views. I added that I looked forward to hearing from them. Seven days later I have not received a response.
Therefore, I wonder: Are Text Trivia and certain service providers at risk of joining the list of worst enemies of capitalism?
Copyright @ 2010 by José Latour. This article is protected under the Canadian Copyright Act and other intellectual property laws throughout the world. Users are permitted to view it or download it for personal use only. Such permission does not constitute any authorization to further reproduce, distribute, publicly display or otherwise transmit it, in whole or in part, by any electronic or mechanical means. Requests for permission to reproduce, distribute, publicly display or transmit the article or part of it are to be made to the author, by email to jose@joselatourauthor.com.
