On my most recent phone bill I noticed an increase of about $10.00
Sure enough. By ignoring the text message and deleting it I was signed up of an unwanted $9.99 per month program.
I called ATT.
The ATT rep told me she would cancel the service immediately. She confirmed that by ignoring the text message I had "agreed" to the charges.
I told her that I wanted the $9.99 refunded. She said ATT would ONLY refund the $9.99 if I agreed to put in place a block on ALL future 3rd party charges on the cell phone bill.
I told her I wanted the block on all four of my cell phone lines immediately.
And I got the $9.99 refunded.
Long story short: ATT allows this because they benefit from this extremely anti-customer behavior.
The service I got crammed with was:
02/29/2012 Saynow Alerts 58497 MT SayNow.com If you go to the www.mxtelecom.com it provides NO assistance what-so-ever.
According to the statement at www.saynow.com "SayNow has been acquired by Google, Inc. For media inquiries please contact press@google.com."