Help! I can't stop receiving text alerts

O2 subscribers are reporting difficulties cancelling text alerts from the mobile operator after it announced plans to charge for the service.

In a letter to customers, O2 said that "in order to maintain quality standards and ensure continued improvement to our text alert services" it has decided to introduce charges for text alerts from August 3. From that time O2 customers will be charged 13p per alert received, with Vodafone and Orange customers being charged from 20 p per message.

O2 advises customers to login to the 'My Account' section of its Web site, then to click on 'Alerts' and select 'off' for the relevant alert.

However a number of Register readers have reported difficulty cancelling their subscriptions, reporting that the site repeatedly crashed when they tried to cancel the service.

Is O2 guilty of inertia selling? Subscribers should be asked to logon and agree to be charged rather than the other way around.

Some of those who contacted us registered for the text alert service through Genie, which has since been rebranded as part of O2.

No one from O2 was available for comment on the story. ®

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