Signed up for a 'free SMS' service? Here's the high cost you pay

Thousands of companies have jumped into this arena in the last couple of years and have been cashing on the lure of sendign FREE SMS (text messages). Well, as somebody has rightly said 'No lunch is FREE in this world'. The statement holds true here too.

By enrolling into the FREE SMS service, you are actually paying a much higher price than you would have by using your normal SMS messages by mobile connection provider.

Sounds foolish? Let us try to find out the actual cost by comparing the two here.

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Courtesy: Am22Tech.com

The price you pay

1. Ads in your message

Ever wondered how these FREE SMS companies earn? Are they in the charity business? Certainly not.

In fact, they want users like you to enroll and send as many messages as possible. Reason? They embed an advertising message at the end of each message that you send and get paid for it from the advertiser.

How do you feel when your cable operator covers your screen footer with local Ads? Do you really want to see those crackers on your messages too?

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2. Selling your and reciever's mobile number for FREE

Yes, it is true that you are unknowingly selling your mobile number to these SMS companies for FREE! As soon as you register yourself and send an SMS to any of your friend, they essentially store the mobile number(your and receiver's) in their database and then sell it to the marketing companies for good price.

Do you ever get the share of this amount? Never and you would never even get to know that who sold your number to whom! And then you complain that you get so many unsolicited marketing calls.

Well, you don't have anybody else than yourself to blame.

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3. Unwanted invite to SPAM

We all hate SPAM. Don't you? If you love it, then you don't need to worry, please carry on with the FREEbies.

You must have also heard of companies offering a message marketing campaigns that promises to send your message to 'n' number of people. How do they do it? No surprises here that they are the same FREE SMS companies that sell those packages.

They already have a huge database of mobile numbers and can send the SMS to all of them. Will you be able to track that the SPAM that you received has been sent by the same 'FREE SMS' company?

I don't think we have any mechanism in place to do it.

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4. Requires Internet

You essentially need to connect to the 'FREE SMS' service provider via Internet and Internet is NOT FREE. If you are using the mobile application provided by your 'FREE SMS' company, it would also require you to connect to the Internet either via your home broadband or mobile internet.

In any case, you would be paying for the Internet usage cost.

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5. No ads messages are NOT FREE

Try asking your 'FREE SMS' provider to send the messages without ads. They will immediately ask you to register for a plan where you need to pay for the SMS.

Conclusion

I would agree with most of you who would argue that it does not hurt to see a small advertisement if the whole package is coming to you for free. This model has worked in case of web and mobile advertisements with the likes of Google Adsense and Admob.

In fact, all bloggers use the same Adsense network to serve ads on this blog/website to keep themselves floating. But, this model does not ask for any of your personal information. Hence, it cannot potentially put your details at risk.

You are also free to make a decision on whether to click on ads or not.

On the other hand, the 'FREE SMS' companies are essentially storing your mobile number and selling it to make profits without your knowledge and consent.

So, convert the cost of time that you would spend reading and deleting the SPAM messages, dealing with the unwanted marketing calls into currency. I am sure there would not be many who would find it to be expensive than the normal NON-FREE SMS.

Remember, time is money even if you have not realised it till now!