This type of predatory behavior has been happening for a long time. When I was about 9 years old, my brother and I bought Link's Awakening on Gameboy. On the back of the booklet that comes with the game was a line that read, "Need Help? Call this number" with an 800 phone number listed.
We had access to the home phone and wanted to beat the game. So of course, we called the number a few times to get hints on how to beat hards parts of the game. This was before the internet where you could just lookup a walkthrough online.
You can imagine my mother's shock when she received a $200+ charge on her phone bill for a phone number she had never heard of. Apparently the cost of the call was about $5/minute.
We got yelled at and we weren't allowed to call the number anymore after that. I'm proud to say we still be the game though.
Perhaps they've finally made it illegal, but I remember plenty of complaints from people about 800 numbers that were scams that charged to your phone bill when you called them, even if accidental. I remember being surprised at the time because I thought all 800 numbers were free by design.
Good point. To be honest, this was about ~20 years ago and I don't remember the exact phone number. Might have been a 900 number. Either way, the phone number was being primarily marketed towards children who probably didn't know that the calls would cost money.
We had access to the home phone and wanted to beat the game. So of course, we called the number a few times to get hints on how to beat hards parts of the game. This was before the internet where you could just lookup a walkthrough online.
You can imagine my mother's shock when she received a $200+ charge on her phone bill for a phone number she had never heard of. Apparently the cost of the call was about $5/minute.
We got yelled at and we weren't allowed to call the number anymore after that. I'm proud to say we still be the game though.