Just ‘how free’ are free ringtones? Well, it really depends on your definition of the word ‘free’. For most people it means ‘no charge’ and there are few exceptions to the definition. However, there are so many ‘free ringtones’ websites out there that just plain are not free, yet no one seems to be doing anything about it. Oh I know that the cell phone companies are doing their best to combat this cell phone download site type of spam / scammers, but the average person who is taken by one of these so-called free ringtone sites just lets it slide, thus encouraging these bogus sites.
How does it work?
Well, you do an internet search for a particular song you’d like to have a ringtone for and lo and behold there’s a special ringtone site that has just that song. Sure, you realize that you’ll have to pay a few bucks to download and use the ringtone, so you start to follow the directions. You’re asked to input your cell number to verify where the ringtone will be sent to. That seems reasonable, right? This is where they get you.
As soon as you input your cell number and receive the texted code word, you input the code word on the ringtone site. You scan through the fine print agreement, or perhaps there’s only a link to the legalese, select the ‘I agree’ box and on you go. But as it turns out, the agreement you e-signed includes a clause for ongoing membership to the ringtone site, for which you will be charged a recurring fee of $9.95-$14.99 (depending on which site caught you).
In my experience most of these sites don’t even deliver a working ringtone. A person jumps through all those hoops just to get an error page when the actual download portion is supposed to happen. I wasn’t even aware of the recurring charge until I received my next cell phone bill. Your cell phone service provider will try to get you to contact the fallacious site and have the service discontinued, but if the one that you end up at is anything like my experience the procedures for unsubscribing are all bogus too and the recurring charge will keep showing up until you demand (friendly now, those customer service people are people too!) that the recurring charge be removed from your bills.
For the most part cell phone companies are willing to work with people taken by these free ringtones sites. When I talked with Nextel they assured me that this is one of the number one problems and complaints of customers. But you just can’t be sure they’ll work with you, so the best thing is to avoid downloading ringtones from anywhere other than your provider’s site.