Even though I was annoyed at being duped by Jo, I couldn't be bothered enough to take a note of his or her Altavista email account or send a stinging message back. That could change, however, if the egregious Jo found my cell-phone number. One of these is that users are charged when they are called as well as when they do the calling. This actually makes it illegal for someone to send unsolicited commercial email, or spam, to a mobile phone in the US under a provision in the Telephone Consumer Protection Act designed to save consumers money. However, a very murky legal area means that there is no prohibition on sending a short text message to the same device.
Consumers only pay when they respond to a message on most services.
Bad news if all the owners are at the same tennis match. Rodney Joffe was at a performance of Riverdance when he received what he took to be an urgent message. The Arizona-based entrepreneur had remembered to turn off his telephone function but not his text messaging service. When it rang during the show, he jumped in embarrassment. After reading his message, however, he thought the caller must have dialled a wrong number.