M-Qube, a company based in California, sends me SPAM in the form of jokes each day (text messages). They want to charge me money - $1.25 per joke, I believe. This is SPAM - totally unsolicited - I never signed up for any service.

Rogers Wireless tacks the charges for the unwanted jokes onto my cell phone bill under "Premium Services", costing about $25 to $30 extra per month. So clearly Rogers is in bed with M-Qube, raking off a percentage of the take for doing the collecting.

I have made several complaints by phone and by email to Rogers Customer Service. Rogers refuses to remove the charges from my bill. They claim not to have any control over what M-Qube sends me which of course is a crock. If Rogers stopped collecting the money for the scam, M-Qube would have to stop. But Rogers gets part of the take, so they are happy to participate in this scam.

Of course, Rogers is quick to point out that one can "unsubscribe" from the jokes, but I refuse to, since I never "subscribed" in the first place. It's SPAM. Further, even if I did "unsubscribe" Rogers has assured me that they would not remove the existing charges for the unsolicited jokes I have already received - an amount of over $100.00 at this point.

This form of negative marketing is particularly sleazy, since with most negative marketing schemes (which are illegal, by the way), the company doing the negative marketing normally has no hammer in order to make you pay. They can send you a bill for the unsolicited junk they sent you, but so what. Just ignore it. In the case of Rogers on the other hand, they can cut off your cell phone if you do not pay, so it's like extortion. You are forced to pay money you don't owe..... for nothing at all. Bottom - feeders masquerading as blue chip.

I have reported this scam to various agencies including the RCMP economic crimes unit, and we'll see what happens.

› See More: Rogers / M-Qube SCAM