Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Specialty Hosting and Markets : Charge $x per SMS?

[GixxerPC]

Ok, I see the commercials on TV to text "whatever" to enter to win a chance to win a $4,000 tv....

at the bottom of the screen it says: $1.99 per entry



how does that work?

[linux-tech]

This scam is one of the oldest in the book
You text message them something
They message you back, saying "go here" where you have to put in credit card information.

Alternatively, the "go here" link could be a link to your provider's page where you "purchase" said credit that is sent on to the carrier.

The entry wouldn't be completed without step 2, and , of course you wouldn't want to trust something like this for "just 1.99". That's ridiculous.

[Steven]

Originally Posted by linux-tech

This scam is one of the oldest in the book
You text message them something
They message you back, saying "go here" where you have to put in credit card information.

Alternatively, the "go here" link could be a link to your provider's page where you "purchase" said credit that is sent on to the carrier.

The entry wouldn't be completed without step 2, and , of course you wouldn't want to trust something like this for "just 1.99". That's ridiculous.

Most of the time theres more to it then that. By obtaining 'short number' you are granted various features.. such as billing the user. the phone company will bill the user and then send it to you (taking their percentage of course)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_message_service

Mobile originated short messages may also be used in a premium-rated manner for services such as televoting. In this case, the VASP providing the service obtains a Short Code from the telephone network operator, and subscribers send texts to that number. The payouts to the carriers vary by carrier and the percentages paid are greatest on the lowest priced premium SMS services. Most information providers should expect to pay about 45% of the cost of the premium SMS up front to the carrier.

I recently helped a customer with this kind of thing.

No credit cards, no going to specific links.. Its based on sms.

[GixxerPC]

I was just curious, if I could offer that as a payment source for my services.

Example, instead of paying with a credit card or paypal, they can pay via their phone bill.

[Serasoft]

Originally Posted by RapidCityHosting

I was just curious, if I could offer that as a payment source for my services.

Example, instead of paying with a credit card or paypal, they can pay via their phone bill.

This is indeed possible. Reverse premium messaging is offered by a large amount of mobile solution providers, and allows you to bill a user via text message of any sum (via a multiple of smaller premium rate messages).

At no point are any credit card details required.

Google for "Reverse Billing SMS".

[ParkerUK]

It is possible yes, but if your charged say $5 you would only make around $4 from that sale, they take quite a bit from you for this. We ran a trial for an online gaming TV station, but the cost was too much for a little payment.

[DephNet[Paul]]

Originally Posted by linux-tech

This scam is one of the oldest in the book
You text message them something
They message you back, saying "go here" where you have to put in credit card information.

Alternatively, the "go here" link could be a link to your provider's page where you "purchase" said credit that is sent on to the carrier.

The entry wouldn't be completed without step 2, and , of course you wouldn't want to trust something like this for "just 1.99". That's ridiculous.

This is not a scam, in the UK all of the companies that provide the use of a shortcode are regulated by OFCOM, same as BT and other fixed line and mobile telco firms are. I am sure that this is the case in America and other countries that provide this service.

Shortcodes are also knows as a Reverse Charge SMS. The client is charged anywhere from 10p (standard charge) to £2 per SMS recieved. If they are on a PAYG tariff the charge is deducted from their available balance, and no further SMS' can be recieved. If on a contract the amount of SMS' you have recieved per band is shown on your contract.

Paul

[andymoo]

Originally Posted by PaulStuffins

This is not a scam, in the UK all of the companies that provide the use of a shortcode are regulated by OFCOM, same as BT and other fixed line and mobile telco firms are. I am sure that this is the case in America and other countries that provide this service.

Shortcodes are also knows as a Reverse Charge SMS. The client is charged anywhere from 10p (standard charge) to £2 per SMS recieved. If they are on a PAYG tariff the charge is deducted from their available balance, and no further SMS' can be recieved. If on a contract the amount of SMS' you have recieved per band is shown on your contract.

Paul

It's a highly regulated industry though there's a £5 limit with £10 in the future in the UK. ICSTIS have the power to force massive fines and ban people from working with premium rate.

In the US I know you can bill $9.99 but getting carrier approval is a long winded, complicated business as is collecting revenues too often.

I've integrated premium SMS in 20 countries and wouldn't use it to bill for hosting, unless I was billing for WAP only hosting in the UK, giving clients site builder features from their mobile and billing their account each month with PayForIt.

[Cergo-Sam]

going of andymoo... dose cpanel have a wap function?

[andymoo]

whm > cpanel > branding > there's a mobile style in there but it doesn't do any automatic device detection that i'm aware of and i don't know how it performs on any devices.

any decent phone with a decent browser, n95 iPhone opera mini etc should be fine with viewing a regular cpanel.
edit>>>

looking deeper at that mobile skin it's just xhtml1 so not doing anything special for mobiles at all.

other than restart services what kind of cpanel functions would you want available on your mobile?

[Cergo-Sam]

ok cool , would it be easy to make a up a basic mobile page that test ports for server info to see what services are running? etc mail , ftp , apache... . Having a theme could be wasting clients money(mob bandwith) whats your opion?

[andymoo]

Keeping it light is paramount to mobile, data plans as you kind of point out can be costly in some places so pulling in 20kb of css and 40kb of javascript is the type of thing to avoid when neither may perform as expected on the bulk of devices.

Standards compliant mobile sites are just XHTML-MP (mobile profile) and CSS, there's awesome tools like http://ready.mobi/ which tell you how well you can expect a site to perform on a mobile device. There's templates over at http://passani.it/gap/templates/ so you can use them and throw any bit of code behind it to jump through whichever hoops you want!

[Cergo-Sam]

cheers will put them sites to use!

[Henrik]

Originally Posted by linux-tech

This scam is one of the oldest in the book
You text message them something
They message you back, saying "go here" where you have to put in credit card information.

Alternatively, the "go here" link could be a link to your provider's page where you "purchase" said credit that is sent on to the carrier.

The entry wouldn't be completed without step 2, and , of course you wouldn't want to trust something like this for "just 1.99". That's ridiculous.

That is not how it works. Telcos utilize payment gateways, which are made by companies such as Ericsson, Nokia etc and then the mobile operator stands as the creditor towards their customer whom in their turn used the pay per SMS service. (Thus the fee to the telco being so high - they stand as credit holder until the end-consumer paid their bill to them in their turn.)

I hope that my comment above shed some light on this topic for you

[Progress]

Who offers a good premium SMS service for billing on hosting?