Bomb Celly and Hotcars101 Texts

Have you received notifications for Bomb Celly or Hotcars101? Below is a look at each of these services.

Bomb Celly

This is a subscription service for your smart phone. You are allotted 100 “credits” per month for $9.99, which you can use for text alerts, wallpapers, and ringtones. Wallpapers, for example, require 10 credits. These services have a bad reputation for sneaking onto phone bills with their automatically renewing subscriptions, often without users aware of it for months.

Further details on their website read:

Available to users over 18 for $9.99 per month for 100 credits charged on your wireless account or deducted from your prepaid balance on AT&T, T-Mobile, Cincinnati Bell and U.S. Cellular. Users on these carriers will receive 3 alerts per week for text alert services chosen. Unused credits will not be rolled over to the next month.

Their website title reads:

Bomb Celly Portal:: Hottest Ringtones, Wallpapers, Text Alerts, and more

If you feel you have been signed up for this service without your permission, text STOP to 50329. You can call 800-235-7105 for automated help or call 800-416-6129 for a live operator. You may also want to contact your cell provider to block these types of subscriptions.

One odd note is that the website bombcelly.com was created on 3/21/2011 according to whois data, but their terms and conditions are dated three months earlier, 1/5/2011. It’s unclear why their terms would pre-date the website by several months, but perhaps the site was created from a template and these terms existed in a prior incarnation.

Personally, this author finds these types of services to be a waste of money at best. The wallpaper listed on the website is a very small selection, none of which was very impressive. Most smart phone users can get ringtones and wallpapers for free or very inexpensive, without the need for a recurring charge on their phone bill.

So is Bomb Celly a scam? I’m not able to say at this point. I certainly feel that it’s unnecessary. I’ve had reports of users successfully opting out using the STOP command, while others have told me they’ve had more difficulties.

HotCars101 Texts

HotCars101.com claims to send car-related text message alerts to consumers. What is this site and message service about, and are there really “hot” cars to be had? Let’s take a look.

The website itself is rather underwhelming, with nothing more than four image links. It’s actually only three different images, with one image repeated. Each of these links goes to an external website.

The first (and fourth) graphic reads “Fast, Free, No Obligation New & Used Car Quotes.” Clicking this graphic takes you to quotes.newcarsplus.com. This site wants you to fill in information in order to be sent car quotes. Looks much like the “find insurance quote” sites seen everywhere online. It’s doubtful any “hot cars” will be found here.

Next we have a graphic that reads, “Auto insurance tips.” This graphic, not surprisingly, links to autoinsurancetips.com. The main page of this site asks for our zip code and displays graphics by Allstate, Bankrate Insurance, and Nationwide. I’m not quite sure if this site qualifies as giving “tips” and it certainly doesn’t offer consumers any way to buy cars.

At least this site offers a way to find cars, but you have to fill in a host of personal information to get your quote. Cars? Yes. Hot? No.

At the top of Hotcars101.com there is a link that offers to sign you up for their “text alert” service. Clicking this link takes you to another site, which appears to be a vague SMS service.

What kind of deals? The site appears to be more about loans than cars, so it’s unclear what this service will really provide.

HotCars101.com appears to be a portal to car loan and car buying search sites. And I should not that when you attempt to close the website, you’ll be greeted with a popup window asking you if you’re sure you want to leave, which is annoying at the very least.

Your Turn

Have you used either of these services? Give us your thoughts.