Thank you FluidDjango for posting this. You just saved me money.
After reading this article, I realized this just happened to me. I ignored the messages (From "Brain Cool IQ"), thinking that they were spam. Didn't bother reading them. Thankfully I had not yet deleted them.
The first message, on Mar 8, advertised the service. Then, on Mar 22, I received three messages in a row. The first advertising the service, the second welcoming me to the service and inviting me to cancel with a "STOP" message, and the third with some stupid fact.
In my case, the STOP message, which I sent just about 20 minutes ago, seems to have worked. I got a response claiming I was unsubscribed from messages and fees.
I never subscribed to anything in the first place. This is fraud, plain and simple. In my case, I ignored the first advertisement sent on the 8th. Had I actually subscribed to this service, they wouldn't need to advertise it first. Since their first round of messages on Mar. 8 didn't succeed, I imagine they got bolder and decided to subscribe me (and everyone else in that batch) without my having asked.
Since this was from a few days ago, I cannot check to see if anything was billed to my Verizon account yet. That would show up on the next invoice. I did change my account settings right away, blocking all Premium SMS message services.
I received the three messages while I was reading the linked article! My messages came from "MobibroIQ". I did not respond.
I logged in to AT&T and launched a chat with Technical Support. I indicated in my description that I wanted to place a purchase block for 3rd party services billed to SMS. The entire exchange took about 10 minutes. I received an email for each line on my account indicating the purchase block had been activated and that a PIN code would be required for charges to apply. AT&T reported that the change could take up to 90 minutes to take effect. As I am typing this, I received a message from this "MobibroIQ" stating, "This msg confirms that u have discontinued and will no longer receive messages or charges for this service..."
Again, I did not reply "STOP."
I hope this solution is as painless and simple for you as it was for me.
EDIT: Follow up message from AT&T "To confirm, purchase blockers have been added to all lines and also checked your line #### & cancelled a subscript.charge for $9.99, will see credit next bill"
I got the same thing on the night of March 23, three messages from "brain cool IQ." Verizon can't tell me yet if there is a charge incoming or not, because they can't seem to see charges in between bill cycles.
After reading this article, I realized this just happened to me. I ignored the messages (From "Brain Cool IQ"), thinking that they were spam. Didn't bother reading them. Thankfully I had not yet deleted them.
The first message, on Mar 8, advertised the service. Then, on Mar 22, I received three messages in a row. The first advertising the service, the second welcoming me to the service and inviting me to cancel with a "STOP" message, and the third with some stupid fact.
In my case, the STOP message, which I sent just about 20 minutes ago, seems to have worked. I got a response claiming I was unsubscribed from messages and fees.
I never subscribed to anything in the first place. This is fraud, plain and simple. In my case, I ignored the first advertisement sent on the 8th. Had I actually subscribed to this service, they wouldn't need to advertise it first. Since their first round of messages on Mar. 8 didn't succeed, I imagine they got bolder and decided to subscribe me (and everyone else in that batch) without my having asked.
Since this was from a few days ago, I cannot check to see if anything was billed to my Verizon account yet. That would show up on the next invoice. I did change my account settings right away, blocking all Premium SMS message services.