Individual post from "Nothing In It"

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Text Messaging

My friends, I regret to inform you that you will no longer be able to send SMS "text" messages to my mobile phone. As of today, such messages to my number will be blocked, per my request, by my mobile provider, AT&T.

I was never that big a fan of text messages. From a phone phone, they are cumbersome. From a data phone, they are extraneous.

I never had a messaging plan. I allowed messaging to and from my phone mostly as a convenience to my friends, and even in a heavy usage month the 20 cent a la carte charges for these messages never added up to the amount AT&T would have charged me for a messaging plan.

I'm fundamentally opposed to paying to be advertised to, however. Yesterday and today, I received messages that were obviously ads at best, and scams at worst. I'm pretty sure such messages are illegal, but the AT&T phone rep wasn't able to confirm or deny that. She suggested that I reply "STOP" or "CANCEL" to the messages, but why would I want to communicate in any way with these people? I was told that they could remove the charges for those messages, but that the only way to protect myself from similar messages in the future was to block all SMS messages to my phone.

So, I guess the amount of money AT&T is losing by blocking all messages to my phone is less than the amount they would have to spend to actually protect me. Thanks, AT&T.

2012.04.03 at 11:30am EST

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