The costly sound of music
p2pnet.net News:- A Swedish mobile phone subscriber decided to take advantage of a 3 Sweden advertisement offering free music all summer to wherever he happened to be.
So when he went on holiday to Italy, he kept on downloading music, says The Local, quoting Stockholm City.
But when the music lover was back in Sweden, he was shocked to find 3 had blocked calls, and to be told by 3`s call centre that he owed them 8,000 kronor (about $1,330 at the time of writing), says the story.
Then, When he got home he found the total bill to be 28,000 kronor (about $4,654.
In fact, far from being free, as 3 had promised in its adverts, songs cost 30 kronor per megabyte if you happened to download them in Italy, says The Local, adding:
According to Stockholm City, the restrictions on 3`s offer were hidden in the smallprint on 3`s website.
When Claes called 3 to complain, they offered to let him pay the debt off in installments but he was still not happy.
Only after the subscriber complained to the press did the company promise to release him from his debt, and to make its publicity material clearer.
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See:-
The Local – “Free” music comes with a bill for thousands, August 12, 2005
August 12th, 2005 at 6:32 pm
Fine print is usually the way the cartels manage to screw people. READ IT or don’t do business with these bastards.
August 12th, 2005 at 10:23 pm
Sorry, but I’d have to go with the mobile provider here.
I don’t know how exactly the “free music” stuff was set-up but I’m guessing that you could DL the music for free (as in no paying for content) but pay for traffic (over GPRS I presume)
And since he was “in roaming” (correct term?) the Italian operator should be paid for their bandwidth.
And I don’t even believe that restrictions were hidden in small print, people simply don’t read their contracts. Nothing is free anymore… get used to it.
August 13th, 2005 at 3:00 am
“Nothing is free anymore…” More like nothing legal is free, theres still Warez (not warez p2p)