Confuse-a-Consumer

According to the About.com posting, “Jamster Slammed for Mobile Selling Practices,” by Stephen Lawson, the ringtone company Jamster/VeriSign was in a business of ill-repute in 2005.

Some questions come to mind while reading Lawson’s article:

1) Did Cingular acquire AT&T or vice versa?  Lawson states “Cingular, which now owns AT&T Wireless…”

2) Analyst Eddie Hold metions “confused subscribers” and says, “There’s no such thing as an easy-to-read wireless bill.”  Why do you think this is the case? Is confuse-a-consumer an intentional tactic employeed by the carriers?

3) Lawson draws an intersting conclusion at the end of his article. He assumes that two incidents are correlated, but he does not give evidence for his statement. He presents the statement that Jamster advertised on Nickelodeon, and then states that Jamster’s business dependedon exploiting children who would force their parents to buy ringtones. I found the idea that Jamster’s business depended on the kids market to be a bit extreme. What do you think of this statement?

“In the case of Jamster, the service is advertised heavil on TV channels such as Nickelodeon that are aimed at children, according to the suit. (Jamster also advertises on PC World.) The company depended on drawing young mobile users into the service and then having their parents pay the charges, which appear on the monthly cell phone bill, the suit alleges.”