Loudoun Force

Surfpin was established in 2002 with the intention of defining a new industry approach to accepting payments from a demographic that do not have credit cards. - Surfpin, pay-by-phone service corporation

As soon as I got my child a cell phone, I noticed these two itemized charges, under the “Downloads and Premium Content” section:

257 Subscription Surfpin Alerts $9.99
258 Subscription Surfpin Alerts $9.99

I spoke with a rep from the cell company, who indicated that I needed to turn off web access to make these go away. I immediately did. However, recently I noticed the charges were still there.

I called the cell company again, a bit incensed this time. I found that Surfpin had apparently underhandedly signed my child up for some monthly subscription service. Something he had no idea he did.

In fact, according to this CBS News report, it appears that getting a kid to respond to any seemingly innocent query, such as deleting a bad joke, can be used to enroll them in expensive and needless subscription services. Free ring-tones are also used in these subscription scams.

Another company enriching themselves using this scam is Blinko. Blinko claims to have 60 million paying customers and sales of about $262 million a year

The representative at my phone company acknowledged that he hears complaints about these subscriptions all the time, and he felt that these services were nothing but a scam.

Given the obvious security holes associated with this fraud riddled billing scheme, and the fact that the phone companies are obviously aware of them, you’d think the phone company would need to get your explicit permission to bill your phone in this way.

Nope.

In fact phone companies even refuse to provide customers with the option to turn off the ability to charge their phones for these so-called “subscriptions”.

They also refuse to stop fraudulent changes after they are pointed out to them.

To stop these charges the rep told me I had to send the text “STOP” to a number associated with SurfPin, which is the company specializing in this bill-by-phone scheme. Surfpin’s website brags about “accepting payments from a demographic that do not have credit cards”, i.e., children.

That also had no affect.

I ended up changing the phone number for my son’s phone, which he screamed about. We’ll see if that stops the charges.

So given all the features cell phone companies are providing these days, why not one to prevent your cell phone from being used as an open access credit card?

According to the same CBS News report, the Cell Phone companies are getting a piece of the action.

The Immigration debate has touched off an increase in “English-Only” and “English as the Official Language” initiatives. Recently, the influence of “English-only/Official Language” proponents was highlighted by the Spanish Language Presidential Debate hosted by Univisión. GOP Presidential candidate Tom Tancredo who has centered his campaign on assailing illegal immigration, has said he would never participate in a Spanish-language forum.

Further, there are various Federal legislative initiatives to impose Official English edicts through-out the U.S.

What do “English as Official Language” and “English-Only” mean?

Though some 27 states have defined English as the Official language, the implications of these laws very widely. For example, Massachusetts simply states that no person shall have the right to vote “who shall not be able to read the constitution in the English language, and write his name“, with certain exceptions for age and disabilities. Other state and local edicts limit or bar government’s provision of non-English language assistance and services. For example, some restrict bilingual education programs, prohibit multilingual ballots, or forbid non English government services in general–including such services as courtroom translation or multilingual emergency police lines.

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All GOP Presidential Candidates, other then McCain, are campaigning to make English the Official language. This could mean that all communication between the government and the people it serves would have to be performed exclusively in English. It would also mean that all the U.S. government’s documentation would have to be written exclusively in English, unless specific exemptions were made.

However, the GOP is singing a different tune when it comes to catering for votes from the Hispanic community. All except two candidates have agreed to a Spanish Language debate with Univisión on Dec. 9. The only two candidates who are not confirmed for the Dec. 9 debate are Mike Huckabee and Tom Tancredo. Tancredo has centered his campaign on assailing illegal immigration and has said he would never participate in a Spanish-language forum.

Though many English speakers are unfamiliar with Univisión, its audience surpasses that of cable networks such as CNN and MSNBC.

So will the GOP continue to promote their vision of forcing our government to English only communications in face of the fact that they themselves couldn’t stick to English only communications even during their campaign cycle?

On Wednesday, November 7, LCCRI received information from Ned Waterhouse, deputy superintendent, in response to a request for information for figures on this year’s opt-out requests, which confirmed what we had thought all along.  Contrary to what Wayde B. Byard, spokesman for LCPS, said in a statement to Washington Post, that “This has not been a major concern that parents express,” more than 1800 students returned the opt-out form this year, an increase of more than 3500%.  1858 students returned the form within the time allotted by LCPS.

According to the article in the Washington Post May 28, 2007, only 54 students wrote letters at the beginning of the 2006-2007 school year to “opt-out” their personal information from being released to military recruiters.  Prior to this year, a small paragraph on page 23 of the Student Rights and Responsibility Handbook required students and parents to write a letter requesting that the student’s personal information not be released to military recruiters.  Loudoun Force’s campaign, Loudoun County Coalition on Recruitment Issues (LCCRI), found that almost all parents they spoke with had no idea that their child’s personal information was being released without their permission.  Read the rest of this entry →