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''Free Texts''?????? from the Daily Mail???
I saw an add for ''free texts'' in todays Daily Mail.
I went to the site ''mailtxt.co.uk'' - and found it is a scam!!
You need to download an app for your phone which is charged for by you network.
THEN to send or RECEIVE a ''free'' text you have to log in to your phones wap to receive or send.
As this costs MORE ussually than the 10p most networks charge where is the FREE in the ''free texts''.
ALSO THIS IS THE ONLY SERVICE I KNOW OF,WHICH ASKS A FEE TO RECEIVE A TEXT.
What a rip off!!!
I went to the site ''mailtxt.co.uk'' - and found it is a scam!!
You need to download an app for your phone which is charged for by you network.
THEN to send or RECEIVE a ''free'' text you have to log in to your phones wap to receive or send.
As this costs MORE ussually than the 10p most networks charge where is the FREE in the ''free texts''.
ALSO THIS IS THE ONLY SERVICE I KNOW OF,WHICH ASKS A FEE TO RECEIVE A TEXT.
What a rip off!!!
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Comments
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Maybe worth contacting the 'Daily Mail' and letting them know what you found, to prevent other people falling for the same scam.0
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Maybe worth contacting the 'Daily Mail' and letting them know what you found, to prevent other people falling for the same scam.
The Daily Mail run the service,and they make it very clear how it works on their site.
See : http://www.mailtxt.org/popup/MailTXT_user_guide.pdf
"MailTXT is a new way to text brought to you by the Daily Mail. It allows youonce a year, starting in February 2009."
to send free, unlimited messages to friends and family worldwide who also
subscribe to the service.
MailTXT is completely free to use and there are no subscription charges or
commitments when using the service. It works by connecting your phone
momentarily to the internet while sending and receiving MailTXTs. Depending
on your mobile tariff, you may get charged a small amount for data transfers, we
estimate around 50p for every 100 messages sent and received in the UK.
To offset this, we will give you a 0.5p ‘MailTXT Credit’ for every MailTXT you send
and receive. You can then choose between redeeming your ‘MailTXT Credit’ at
Mailshop or getting money-off vouchers for your Daily Mail. Payback will be made
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the daily mail has started a new service which is free to join send and receive text all over the world for less than your provider at the following link http://www.mailtxt.org/popup/index.php0
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To clarify - you need to install software on your phone to do this, and it is not exactly a free service as your phone has to connect to the internet to send/receive messages. It might well be cheaper, but not free.
More to read from the website:
MailTXT is a new texting service from the Daily Mail that allows you to send unlimited messages to other registered MailTXT users anywhere in the world for FREE. You can invite as many friends and family as you want to join you on MailTXT for free.
MailTXT works by briefly connecting to your phone's internet connection to send and receive messages. Depending on your mobile tarrif you may be charged a small amount for data transfer - we estimate around 50p for every 100 messages sent and received in the UK.
To offset this, we will give you a 0.5p 'MailTXT Credit' for every message you send and receive. You can then choose between redeeming 'MailTXT Credit' at Mailshop or getting money-off vouchers for your Daily Mail. Your first 'MailTXT Credit' will be due in February 2009 and is only available to users registered in the UK.0 -
Their estimates of 50p for 100 messages is wildly out - that expexts you to retreive and send around 20 messages each time you go on to wap - when they actually alert you whenever you receive a message requiring you to use wap to access that message and answer it - that is totally useless and expensive for people carrying out text ''conversations'' - anyway you can get totally free texts each month from o2 by topping up on the right tarriff.0
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@karin where do you get your figures from as I haven't seen anything like that?
If you are on an 'all you can eat' data package from your network operator such as T-Mobile's web 'n walk or Three's X-Series, then this data usage will be included in that so it's essentially free.
If you are on a pay as you go tariff, it's likely that the per megabyte rate will be around £3 a megabyte. A megabyte (mb) is 1024 kilobytes (kb). That means it's £0.0029 per kb. A standard text message is 160 characters which is 160 bytes. Which is just under 2kb. So even if we send a long message, say 330 characters or 330 bytes or 4kb or thereabouts, then it would cost you £0.012 in data charges which is just over a penny. So if you send about 100 of those, then it will come to about £1.17 in charges. A lot less than the cost of 100 text messages.
Even if you're roaming, because you're on holiday, on typically £7.50 per megabyte, and you're therefore paying £0.0073 per kb then for a 4kb message is going to cost you about 3 pence. And that's a whole lot cheaper than the typical 20p per text message when you're roaming.
*If* both my maths is right (and I hope it is!) and my understanding of how the tariffs work is correct, then it seems to me to be really good value for money. But if you can tell me that you have something different, then please share here. Maybe you're on a different kind of tariff where there is a minimum data charge each day which might explain it?
The network operators don't make it easy to understand these things and the message service providers could do better in explaining exactly how these things work and what file sizes might typically be. But it's still relatively early days for the mobile internet and data services like Mailtxt.
I admit this kind of messaging service isn't necessarily for everybody but it is a cost effective way of handling messaging. A similar service I use is Trutap www.trutap.com and that gives you even more - access to instant messenger and your social networks. Fring www.fring.com is also worth a look and I use that too from time to time. And of course Googlemail works really well on your phone too so you can read your email on the run. And I use that *a lot*.
I hope this clarifies things a bit.0 -
Kilo generally means 1,000 though in computing terms it's 1,024 (nearest power of 2, i.e. 2^10). So just how 1mb is 1,024Kb, 1kb is 1,024 bytes.technokitten wrote: »A standard text message is 160 characters which is 160 bytes. Which is just under 2kb.
However, the message will need to be wrapped up with other data (where it's going, if you asked for a delivery receipt, etc.) so the actual message sent from your phone will be bigger than the size of the text. I presume that's what technokitten meant (before people look at it and go 'eh?').
Most connections will be GPRS or faster which are packet services therefore 'always on' and you should be able to get a LOT of texts into £1.
[as a slight aside, many people may not know that the 'b' in network speeds is bit not byte (1byte=8bits), but the data tariffs generally quote costs in terms of bytes. So a 2Mbps broadband connection implies the ability to carry 256kbytes per second. End of computing basics lesson!]The thanks button is here to the right. If you find a post saves you money, gives you useful information, or you agree with it, take a second to thank the poster!
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i saw an ad the other day in the Mail (not my copy!) but I kept the ad as I thought i'd check it out... they've got some figures from Ofcom that say the average price for sending a text to the UK from Eurpoe is 21p vs 1.4p for the same amount of data to send a MailTXt
I might try it on my hols!
p.s. I did notice that they're now offering £5 Marks and Spencer vouchers for every 5 users anyone signs up:money:0
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