Hacker News Reader

Comment by jcromartie | Hacker News Reader

What I find to be particularly evil is that most carriers charge you for receiving messages, but you cannot opt-out. That means I have to pay for every stupid stock spam and wrong number, and there is nothing I can do about it. They give some bullshit answers about being able to block certain short numbers by configuring it manually through their website and calling them for a refund... but seriously, who is going to take the time to do that?

View on HN

You can always opt out. Call up your carrier and say you never want to receive a text message and you never will receive a text message.

Up until recently T-Mobile refused to let people opt-out of receiving text messages, regardless of what steps you were willing to go through. The only reason they changed their policy was because of a class-action lawsuit that was filed against them.

Ah, yeah, that's what I was talking about. I didn't realize there was a suit that changed their policy. I talked to them fairly recently, and their reps denied the possibility of opting out.

I'm guessing not receiving text messages at all is also not an option for some people. Being able to whitelist numbers from which you can receive messages would be much better.

Umm... I have AT&T and I could cancel all text messages from their setup website or by calling customer support. The messages just went into a blackhole and I never saw or paid for anything my friends would send me.

Of course I share unlimited text with a "family" plan that me and 5 friends are on. But the opt-out for texts still exists last I checked.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com