Examining my mobile phone bill today, I saw a suspicious charge called “Ask Mozoot Alerts” under the Mobile Purchases & Downloads: Communication Charges section.
Somehow I was signed up for (I use passive voice because I do not recall or know if this was there was an action on my part that precipitated this) a text messaging service called MoZoot. Users text them questions and they answer them; not terribly useful considering I have Google and the full internet available on my phone. Worse still, I never remember
(or at worst never actually did sign up for it) signing up for this service. Unsolicited text messages aside, this service insidiously adds a $9.99 recurring montly charge to your mobile phone bill, until you opt out.
As far as I can tell, the vector of infection (I consider this despicable company not so much a service, but more malware/virus upon my mobile phone) was an unsolicited text message that I merely opened. Granted this could just be a symptom, meaning they got my number elsewhere and just texted to inform me that my phone has now been infected with their “service.” It seems you have to reply with a “stop” text message, otherwise the monthly billing persists, despite never actually using the “service.” Such services should only be opt-in, not opt-out.
It took two months to realize this (thanks to auto-billing), but fortunately AT&T refunded both months of charges. I didn’t lose any money, but what a hassle. There was little information about this online, so I thought I would do this service for others similarly afflicted.
I had a similar experience. All of a sudden I received 41 text messages to my phone in a 4 hour period from “Ask Mozoot”. The messages were nonsense telling me to “Ask a Question” or something similar. I sent cancel messages and looked up their customer service and sent emails as well as contacted my service provider Verizon. The texts kept coming for several hours but finally stopped.
The when I saw my phone bill it had 41 charges of $9.99 for premium texts! Verizon claims that they are not able to help because they are just the “middlemen”. Mozoot has “offered” to send a refund in 12 weeks assuming I pay the bill. There is no way I will of course pay the bill so the 12 week refund check won’t work.
Lessons learned:
- If you are not into premium text message services – block them on your phone before you start receiving these scam messages.
- Do not pay the premium message charges – it is also a scam that they service providers say they are “just the middlemen”. They are paid by these scammers and are just as responsible for the scam.
Ask Mozoot and Verizon are scamming and need to be sued to get them to stop.
Same thing happened to me, 1 month got a charge to 9.99, texted the stop, then called att and they refunded the money, next month, nothing, then again this payment period, there it is again. gonna have att permanently block them from my phone…asses
The question is why does AT&T contiinue to work with these thieves, the answer they get a cut. This is a conspiracy to steal.
I want this company sued, anyone interested in filing a class action against AT&T for their collaboration in these thefts.
I just got this on my verizon bill. I was livid since it was added to my netbook so NO text was ever sent to this company. The lady from Verizon was nice and blocked the number so no one can text it and removed the charge from the bill. I told them they need to watch out for these people she said they are putting in a complaint..
Same thing happened to me…on Tmobile….I think it came from a Twitter Direct Message to my cell phone, and all I did was open the txt msg. Its taking 30 days for refund. I have blacklisted ALL 3rd parties from my cell phone. Thanks!
Just got off the phone with AT&T not five minutes ago. Furious. I asked the CSR what my wireless provider is doing to protect me from these absurd subscriptions that I didn’t sign up for. Their answer was to put a purchase blocker in place on the line.
I have texted STOP to the two subscriptions I erroneously had and done the refund process online already.
Is this not theft??? How are they doing this?
same thing here for verizon anyone want to start a lawsuit i am in let me know but no offer of a refund for me
Scamers – Scum of the earth – Same thing here, got scammed for a month. Verizon told me i had accepted their terms and condition at some point. A class action lawsuit does not seem to be a bad idea to stop them. Lesson learned.
Just noticed this in my bill today. Upon checking my texts back a month, I see that they sent me one literally a few days after I got my new phone and changed my plan. It was also the same day Verizon sent me a text about my new phone. How the heck would Mozoot get my number so fast? Only three days? There’s gotta be something going on here. Verizon won’t give me a refund either stating the ‘third-party’ bull. How do we get our money back on this one? I’d never texted or even heard of these guys until they were on the bill. How can that happen? Pissed…
I ahd it happen to my wifes IPhone. I got a merchent block. It appears if you look at there text , or e-mail you have agreed to there term for 9.99 a month.
Same thing happen to me. I was going over my cell phone bill and noticed a misc. charge of $19.98 so, I call up t-mobile and ask them what the hell? They told me I signed up for something called Mozoot Alerts. I watch every penny and, know never to sign-up for anything on-line or other wise. Luckly t-mobile refunded the charge. I asked for a number for this Mozoot whatever, when I called a message came on saying our agents are busy assisting other customers please go to our website and email us then it hung-up on me. If anyone wants to call the number is 866-921-3150, good luck talking to someone. Something needs to be done about this, I suggest to everybody this happens to, call the Federal Trade Commision and file a complaint against Mozoot. The number is 877-382-4357 or you can go to the FTC website and file a complaint on-line.
i just want the shit off my phone and who the hell is mozoot
I am seeing they have attached themselves to my bill too. I NEVER even heard of them. let alone signed up for anything. How do I “opt out” if I don’t know how to contact them??? I am NOT paying a recurring change for something I never purchased! Help!
I thought at&t was a reputable company who would not tolerate this kind of dishonesty. I’ve just noticed the charges from mozoot. I haven’t a clue who these crooks are and what they do. My question is, why is at&t charging me for this???? It’s hard to believe that they would be in on this scam. You would think they would have blocked these guys by now. I’m calling at&t tomorrow.
Thank you so much for posting this.
I’m with TMobile and same thing happened.
ATT was very cooperative and took the consumer’s side. They credited the Mozoot charges $10.69 (w/tax) and advised they would contact Mozoot to terminate their billing. Now that the phone companies have become brokers for 3rd party services they should try to be responsive to their customers. AT&T’s solution, in my case, was to provide a pin authorization to verify text related transactions…Had a similar problem with Verizon and land-line 3rd party charges from some outfit in BlueBell Pa.(no service, no employees to answer the phone but a monthly bill administered by a FCC licensed phone company, Verizon…I Wonder when the FCC will investigate this consumer fraud ?
I too got hit with this mozoot scam. I called verizon and was told that this is a 3rd party subscription service. Verizon has to allow this by FCC law. However, if you ask Verizon to put a block on your phones they can and will do it. But without the block they have no choice but allow your number to be hit by these 3rd party people. there are several out there. I have been hit by two of them. So call your service provider and put a block on your texting service!
YOU opt out of this “service” by texting “stop” to “39000″ This is the code Verizon gave me. within 2 minutes I had a message from mozoot saying my subscription was stopped. I then put a lock on this message so I had proof and called verizon and had the block put on. But you MUST text the 39000 number with the stop and get the reply first. I was told to lock and save the reply text incase they try and bill me again, which happens a lot! the reply is my proof so I can stop any future attemps. So, there you go guys! thats how you stop these jerks…
My service provider is Fido in Canada and I got a huge charge on my bill for event charges. After inquiring, Fido says that these are 3rd party charges and it is something I subscribed for. Unfortunately, I haven’t and said that they cannot block third party. I am going to fight them.
Same here. Recieved 3 unsolicited texts from Mozoot, one every 10 minutes. This, of course, serves as a major irritant, so after the third one I replied STOP, to which I recieved a text confirming the services had been “cancelled”. OK…..
I’ve never been to mozoot.com, or ask.com, or any site soliciting some kind of useless, redundant information-sending service. I did absolutely nothing to prompt a business transaction with this entity.
I called Verizon, and while they reversed the charge and added the block, the gal insisted that there was no way they could just charge me, and that I had to have inadvertently signed up for it. I completely disagree. I never click on any ads, banners, pop-ups — ever. When I told her this, she said, “Well, they are sneaky.” Meh.
Unless somehow replying “STOP” is some kind of implicit agreement, as in, “by replying ‘STOP’, I agree to simultaneously sign up for and cancel service”.. ?
Same story here. This apparently went on for 14 months without me noticing. The website for this company is http://www.mozoot.com and if you call the number, it automatically refers you to the website. I doubt anyone can ever get through to talk to a live person. I’ve done some research and I will be filing a complaint with CTIA, the governing body in the CSC world. By the way, CSC means Common ShortCode and you to lease one and charge wireless customers for your services, you have to abide by consumer protection laws and a code of conduct, including proper and conspicuous “opt-In” and “opt-out” notices. The more people that file a valid complaint, the better. The CTIA’s website is http://www.ctia.org/
Good luck
More REALLY HELPFUL INFORMATION:
Thank you for contacting CSC Customer Support at Neustar. We are always very happy to receive feedback regarding US Short codes. SPAM sent over a short code SMS or charging customers without opting in is definitely against mobile marketing best practices guidelines – http://www.usshortcodes.com/csc_best_practices.html
Neustar runs the leasing database and customer service for the short code registry on behalf of the CTIA organization. CTIA is the only entity that could make a decision to ask us to cancel a short code. CTIA has provided a method for reporting suspected policy violations via email. The address is csca@ctia.org. Please feel free to cc or bcc us on your email outlining your complaints, and I will escalate to our product team as well.
we were also scammed by the mozoot company..upon seeing a 9.99 data charge on our bill when we have an unlimited data plan we dug further and found that we had apparently “downloaded” a company called mozoot. we had no idea what it was until we found this site, so thank you for helping us.
we called verizon and they are refunding the 9.99 on our next bill and have blocked premium texting.
I was also surprised to see three $9.99 charges in two months. Since most companies now have the bill online, I usually don’t check. Luckily Verizon was nice enough to removae charges and put a block on so-called premium charges.
Why do we let crooks like this do these scams
I’m in Australia and i just got done with this scam changed $12
all i can do is call Optus who blocked Content Services on my phone
thanks for all your help on this page on what to do
Hi David from Brisbane Australia here.
As I have read from all of you wonderful people MOZOO.COM has clamed me as a nother victom to the scam.
I never replied to stop as yet. That was today after my question on what is the fartherist planet from the Earth?
So amazed that the message stated it would tell me for 6.90 a week to given me the answer. Was so amazed I will go to my carrier Virgin in the morning and show them this crap that we all are faced with by rotton filthy thieves.
Lets go and get them cheers Davo from Brisbane
I’m another Mazoot victim! How do i go about contacting at&t for the refund?
hello to the other aussies on this thread, i’m on optus in western australia and have also received a less than welcome $18.69 charge for “mozoot unlimited answers” service. i have never texted this number nor have i ever signed up to any mobile service as i know how much of a ripoff and pain in the rear they are. i sent ‘stop’ and received a message back saying the subscription has been cancelled but am going to the optus store to demand a credit for this!
thanks to everyone whos commented on here as i was freaking out about the charges till i found this thread
its quite simple you can either go to your service provider and explain to them the situation as they are in control of your account details and let them know that if they dont see to your swift reimbursement of credit being taken from you and i mean every cent that was taken from your account, you will hit them with an injunction and speak to your ombudsman about such inadvertent thievery.
there is no such “agreement” that opening a message is agreeing to terms to be charged forthwith to a service you have not signed up for.
Dave im from Australia too mate and i was sent the exact same message as you were but im with Vodafone… i will be going in tomorrow to sort this lot out and if they refuse to help me i will be going to my ombudsman.
Who ever knew of such underhanded covert tactics to steal from the honest public amazes me even now despite all that has gone on in recent times !
The same thing has happened to me!
I’m from Australia and have been receiving messages from 19923244 such as “$msg What planet is farthest from the earth…” I was just ignoring them because I thought it was just spam. Little did I know that it was costing me $6 a week. After a couple of months I sussed onto it and called Optus. Straight away they knew that I would be complaining about the mozoot content services. They insisted that I had requested the messages. Th enumber I was given to call to complain to was disconnect. Surprise surprise.
I phoned Optus back and they claim that I sent three messages on a particular day requesting the service. After checking my text log I DIDN’T SEND A SINGLE MESSAGE THAT DAY. Something has gone seriously wrong with messages being sent from my account without me knowing bout it.
Once I worked that out I phoned back Optus feeling pretty ticked off by this stage. To their credit they refunded me the money I had been charged. Thanks Optus. Only took me a couple of hours hassle.
I would still love to know how I “agreed” to receive these messages. Would also love to know how 3 messgages were sent from my phone which don’t appear in the message log. Optus, can you tell me?
Why is this crap allowed to go on?
i had these clowns pull same crap on me, i called Rogers and all they said was i had to pay the amount, as it is a third party bill, and it has nothing to do with them. i never signed up for this crap, it is a complete scam…. i don’t even know how they get your numbers….. i never had this happen to me with my old provider, but 5 times in a year with Rogers Wireless…. that’s getting extreme…. so far has cost me 80.00$ and no help at all from my current wireless provider….
I’m in the same boat. Rogers knows this scam for years and they’re just telling customers “nothing we can do”. I felt they never face the problem and they’re helping scammers by collecting money now $10 per week from customers. http://www.mozoot.com/ca/
Someone had to stop this kind of scam! It must be millions of people scammed by them. So I had no choice to cancel the entire service today!
Another victim of this scam. I have also tried speaking to Rogers and they told me that it is up to mozoot to provide a refund. I have spoken to a person at Mozoot a few times now, not making much head way. I keep getting a live person though who ironically says she cannot help and that someone will call me back, yeah right like that will ever happen. Our service providers should be helping us, we should not be charged for something none of us knowingly accepted. Someone better give me my money back.
I too, am a vitim this scamming company. I spoke to rogers, and the lady was all sympathetic, BUT she said rogers is not responsible for it. I was like, but this is authorized by YOUR COMPANY to sent me those text messages. She said, I have to call mozoot. I spoke to this guy named chris, and he told me to email support@mozoot.com and just leave a phone number and address, and I will get my money back, not even my name????? How is it possible that they sent me a cheq if they dun know mind name? Has anyone gotten a refund from this company? Please post it.
I will follow up with rogers.
AGAIN.
40 dollars… 9.99 a week.. WTF…
it seems like this stupidness is finally hitting Canada as these past few months… I’m with Fido and after a long bitching fest about this “Mozoot” bull-shit Fido said that they would refund my money… (Fido has always been good about that if you tell them you wont pay)
Regardless, Fido and other phone companies should down right ban these scam artist… I think a good solution would b for the carrier to send you an automatic text saying that “you are charged” and how to resolve this…
I had to Google to find out about texting “stop”, and the only reason why was because mozoot text were annoying me, If I had not been annoyed who know how many months this would have carried on for… (well until I got my phone bill anyhow)
somebody needs to put a stop to this…!!!
I have also been hit with this scam. I have spoken to Sasktel here in Canada as I was just charged 10.00 last month and now 40.00 bucks this month for this text messaging premium garbage. she advised me it was mozoot and that i had signed up with them. i advised her why would i care to do that. i never even have heard of this company. i asked for my money back and they said nothing they can do for me. i am furious. advised her i will cancel my service if something doesnt get done. She also advised me that i need to text the word STOP to 39000 and i received a text back sayiung it was cancelled but how do i know that is a true thing. this is crap and someone needs to put a stop to this before everyone is a victim
In Canada with Fido, same thing got a bill for 2 charges $10 on the same day go figure. I tried phoning Mozoot at 1-800-916-3070 however it ends up being an answer service of course. Fido were only going to meet half way at first, as they state they get billed from Mozoot. I remember receiving the texts and thought what a bunch of BS and deleted text of course. But I never replied or signed up, why would I sign up for $10 a pop, there is Google if I want a question answered. Fido and the rest of the wireless companies should stop paying this fraud company.
Fido did refund the full $20 but I still had to send a text to 39000 with the text stop. Then MoZoot replies: Your MoZoot subscription is cancelled – no charges or messages…to something I never signed up for. The question is how did they get my number I’ve only been with Fido for 3 months? And why does Fido even agree to pay such a bogus company?
I am a Roger’s customer and this happened to my bill on June 10, 2011. It is a $10 charge and the bill shows 1 8000 916 3070 to call for billing questions. I know it is a scam when I saw it and called Rogers 3 times since July 3. As usually, they sternly refused to reverse the billing and told me to contact the company directly but when I tried, I only got voice mail with no time space for me to leave message. I called Rogers back and asked them to try calling on my behalf which they did and got through. They left a voice mail for me but that was no use since Mozoot just did not call me back.
A week after I called Rogers again for follow up. I was again refused for my request to reverse this billing error and so I asked to talk to a manger there, he was not helpful. He did called Mozoot for me again and got through but Mozoot only promised to file this as a complaint and told me to email them for a refund. I don’t trust them and I don’t want to get a refund from them. I told them I don’t want to deal with them at all since I don’t know them. Why can’t they reverse the billing with Rogers to process the refund? I got them promise to put the complaint confirmation via email but again, that promise was broken. It did not come within 24 hours as promised.
So I called Rogers again after a few days and I told the lady at customer service that they should know that I trust Rogers as a customer all through this year and I only trust Rogers. Rogers should protect me as their customer, not sending me away to deal with a garbage company like Mozoot. Finally, the lady put through a one time good will credit for me for the amount. She also told me that someone actually “opted me out of the service” in Roger’s system so even though I did not send “STOP” to 39000 I am still not getting billed.
I don’t need to be bitchy but simply state my concern as a long term loyal customer. Tonight, I feel lucky but I don’t know when this will happen again. So I asked where can I file a complaint. Rogers gave me this number to call: 1 877 249 2782 at CRTC.
Whoever going through this ordeal should call this number and file a complaint so this kind of scam cannot last long.
Just find out today about this scam, when I call Fido and ask to explain the additional charges on my phone bill ($30 BTW). The answer was: well is a third party charge and we can’t do anything about, you must have sign up for their services. I Google the mozoot company and call them, same BS no answer and when I finally talk to somebody they where so vague, they ask me for a phone number (right) after that I will give you my number. Good to hear that Fido refund some of you, I will get on the phone with them later. I am surprise that companies like Fido and Roger in Canada (which have so many rules and laws) will allow this to happen, they should be responsible. With so many feature on our phones today, possible they don’t have one feature to protect us from this crooks, looks like they must making some money from this scam as well.
just wanted to say I just got my Verizon bill and there was a charge for 9.99 for premium messaging on my Galaxy Tablet. I called Verizon and the CSR explained what this was. I watch very carefully what I do on the Tablet and don’t ever remember even seeing the name Mozoot. I had the block put for the 3rd party texting and they took the charge off of my bill.
I’ve had this same problem with these Mozoot clowns. Recently i checked my cellphone bill and i find 41 bucks of additional charges due to “3rd party charge”. 4 simple messages, popping out of nowhere. I assumed this could have been some prom otional crap from Rogers or something, but when i called their customer service they simply told me to call Mozoot and remove the service. I did, and apparently the service was removed, but i’m wondering if this will happen again. 41 bucks isn’t an amount i’m willing to pay to feed these thieves.
What i’m wondering is, how are these scammers getting people’s numbers? And why do communication companies allow this to continue without even warning new customers about this threat? Why do they allow these evident scammers to charge them, while leaving the customer unsupported to actually deal with the root of the problem? Seriously, this only affects their reputation as a company. Do they get a cut or something?
I just realised same thing is happening to me.240 dollars later. I phoned rogers and they say there is nothing they can do. I have sent the stop text and dont know if that will work. If not then I will have to shutdown my account with rogers.
I didnt even have a new line, i reqested VZ to have a replacement phone and after a month i see this charge on my account so i called VZ and got the same 3rd Party deal, then after 10 minutes i again called and that lady was very helpful she put a block on my line for premium messanging services and provided a refund for this month and also told me that she is going to keep an eye for next month as well if it again charges she is going to reverse that charge as well.
i also got a bill and erased the message when i got it i did not even look at it.
Anyways 1-800-916-3070 will cancel it i did it and it sends you a message saying you have canceled it and you will not receive messages from them again. Just to help out those people that got screwed hope this helps
I signed up with Rogers for cell-phone service on 27 July. I received the first text message from something called ZapVideo the same day. I ignored it and the subsequent messages. I noticed on my next bill a charge of $25 for texts from ZapVideo. Rogers claim they do not give out new phone numbers. However, on the bill was a contact number for billing questions: 1 800 916 3070. I spoke to a fellow who was quite helpful, told me to e-mail mozoot.support, asking them to cancel my “subscription” and refund me my $25. I received an e-mail cancelling my non-existent subscription, and telling me to expect a cheque within 3 weeks. This morning I received a cheque for $65 from an P.S.M.S. Refund Co in Boulder. I was not expecting any other refunds. it has to be Mozoot.
So, for all you “suckers” out there, don’t give up!
A new line of comments has begun with talk about class action against Mozoot. Tune in. Call the lawyers with your story. Stop wireless abuse. Send an email to stop.wireless.abuse@gmail.com. Refer to the howardforum before doing so if it makes you more comfortable. Help stop Mozoot.
I don’t want that post with that image posted. Didn’t realize I still had a gravatar account. Please approve this one instead. Thanks.
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I had $110 unauthorized charges from Mozoot over the course of 3 months. I called Rogers Customer Service and they said they were helpless and it was my own fault. Mozoot’s phone number went straight to an answering machine and was never returned. I complained to the CCTS, and within a few days a Rogers rep from the President’s office called me and refunded the charges. Apparently the person who had my phone number before me subscribed, and Mozoot never bothered to check if it was still the same person.
If you get dinged by this scam, don’t bother with Mozoot or Rogers customer service. File an official complaint with CCTS.
http://www.ccts-cprst.ca/
This site seems to be supported by the following mobile carriers Rogers Wireless . SaskTel Mobility . MTS Mobility . Virgin Mobile . Fido . Bell Mobility . Telus if this site is
fraudulent then these carriers should be held responsible for the fraud that the company
(mozoot) is committing. Someone should start a class action suit against these carriers. Then and only then will these carriers take legal action against mozoot. As someone once said money talks and BS walks. Until this is done everyone who is infected with this malware will keep paying for this fraud.
add me to the list. i just realized today that all this spam from 39000 was in fact premium alerts, at 10$ a week, since april 2011. I’m with Rogers in Canada, Quebec. Like many others here i called rogers only to hear them “sympathize” with me and how they were actually unable to reverse the charge (yeah right). They explained that they were being billed for it and that i had to ask MoZoot to reverse the charge. Ultimately i got nothing from them so i tried calling mozoot. I was able to speak to someone, pretty fast in fact. I found funny that the first option on the message was to press 1 to STOP receiving text, i think they must be getting that question often.
Anyhow, i spoke to some asian guy and he explained me that they apparently received a text from ME on april 17 to start the service. I dont know what i can do because my phone broke this year and i had to replace it, meaning i do not have my old texts and cannot verify this information to begin with. and also i have no idea how i would have knowingly agreed to being charged 10$ per week for a service im not even aware of.
I’ll be filing a complaint as well.