Are You Smarter than the IQ Scam?

Here’s a question to my Facebook friends, “Where do you find the time to....take quizzes, send flowers, drinks, gifts, and that other stuff?” I just can’t keep up.

But now that I know the truth about some of my friends’ IQ scores, I am glad that I am too *busy *self-conscious *insecure *private (just insert any adjective and the sentence will be correct) to take this quiz.

The truth is that my friends never took the IQ quiz. Neither did Angelina Jolie or President Obama. Facebook gets its funding through advertisers. The IQ quiz is run by National Telephone Advisory (NTA), who is just another advertiser, but it’s wrong of Facebook to allow this company to access your friends list and pose their “challenges” to come from your trusted sources.These challenges are actually scams that hook you into giving out your cell phone number and subsequently agreeing to receive automatic text messaging at the cost of $9.99/mo.

The “Test Your IQ”, “See if you can beat their score” teasers play on your curiosity. You spend a few of your precious minutes answering questions. You think you are scoring well, but when you reach the end you don’t get your results. Hey, you’ve just spent valuable time! But you can get your results sent to you, just fill out some information—including your cell phone number. Even if you are smart enough to scan through the user agreement you might get caught. You might think that all you’ll get is one text message that gives you the quiz results. So you agree to the terms. Then you get a text with instructions to text back with the given PIN. Once you reply you’ve just agreed to receive more automatic text messages. The charge is then added to your cell phone bill. You’ll notice the annoying messages, but you might not realize the slight increase in your bill, since like most people you don’t scrutinize your monthly statement.

This is how NTA describes themselves on their website:
“We are a global mobile entertainment media and technology company providing entertainment services to millions of customers around the world. We operate various mobile subscription services, whereby subscribers receive content via SMS messages on their mobile phones.”

Some lawyers are cashing in on the scam by telling people that they can have the scam ceased. You don’t need a lawyer. Also on NTA's homepage is a section headlined “Unsubscribe” which states:
“If you would like to unsubscribe from any of our services please contact customer service at 1-800-235-7105”

According to the company’s terms and conditions you can stop the texting by relaying STOP to 66047. You may also contact your cell phone service provider to have texting from National Telephone Advisory blocked.

But don’t count on getting any of your money refunded. By initiating the texting you also gave up any liability. The following is taken directly from the agreement:
UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHALL THE COMPANY AND/OR THE COMPANY’S ENTITIES AS APPLICABLE, BE LIABLE FOR ANY UNAUTHORIZED USE OF THE SERVICES AND/OR THE DOWNLOADS.
UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHALL THE COMPANYAND/OR THE COMPANY’S ENTITIES AS APPLICABLE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY CONSEQUENTIAL, INCIDENTAL OR SPECIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF BUSINESS PROFITS, BUSINESS INTERRUPTION, LOSS OF BUSINESS INFORMATION, AND THE LIKE) ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE SERVICES AND/OR THE DOWNLOADS, EVEN IF THE COMPANY AND/OR THE COMPANY'S ENTITIES AS APPLICABLE, HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. BECAUSE SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OR LIMITATION OF LIABILITY FOR CONSEQUENTIAL OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, THE ABOVE LIMITATION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU. TO THE EXTENT THAT IN A PARTICULAR CIRCUMSTANCE ANY DISCLAIMER OR LIMITATION ON DAMAGES OR LIABILITY SET FORTH HEREIN IS PROHIBITED BY APPLICABLE LAW, THEN, INSTEAD OF THE PROVISIONS HEREOF IN SUCH PARTICULAR CIRCUMSTANCE, THE COMPANY AND/OR THE COMPANY’S ENTITIES AS APPLICABLE, SHALL BE ENTITLED TO THE MAXIMUM DISCLAIMERS AND/OR LIMITATIONS ON DAMAGES AND LIABILITY AVAILABLE AT LAW OR IN EQUITY BY SUCH APPLICABLE LAW IN SUCH PARTICULAR CIRCUMSTANCE, AND IN NO EVENT SHALL SUCH DAMAGES OR LIABILITY EXCEED $100.