Verizon service sending Stratosphere owners weird VZWNMN texts

[Moo Cow]

I got a couple of text messages today from the number 6250, one this morning and one this afternoon. They said "VZWNMN: 1;1" and "VZWNMN: 1;2" respectively. At first I thought they were spam from somewhere. I was wondering what the deal was, so I went online to good ole Google and checked it out. Found this article, published today in fact, and it's legit Verizon text messages regarding its new Backup Assistant Plus service:

http://www.droid-life.com/2012/02/1...essages-from-vzwnmn-here-is-how-to-stop-them/

Samsung Stratosphere owners are the latest target for Verizon’s new Backup Assistant Plus service. Many of them are receiving text messages from VZWNMN, something that we understand to be annoying, to say the least. We actually wrote about this exact same tip in June for the Incredible 2, but for whatever reason, it’s Big Red’s other 4G LTE slider that is being attacked today.

Like I said, the messages have to do with Backup Assistant Plus which is VZW’s new subscription service that allows you to store more than just contacts. You can manage multiple webmail accounts, store media (pictures and video), and access them all from anywhere. It may sound neat, but your Android phone already does all of the contact backup automatically to Google’s cloud. And if you want to backup media, there are plenty of options like Dropbox or Box that will do just fine. There is really no reason to sign up for this service other than to make your life hell when setting up your next Android phone.

So here is what you can do to get rid of the service and those pesky texts:

1. Login to your Verizon account.
2. Click on “Account” at the top and then “Change Features” from the bottom right.
3. Select the device you would like to remove the service from.
4. Then scroll down until you find “Contact Management” and click “Remove.”

Personally, I didn't want the BAP service, as I have no need for it, so I logged on to my VZW account, followed the instructions, and I am now removed from it. That should fix that! (And to be clear, this is a free service, as if you follow the instructions to remove it, you'll see it's not adding any charges to your account.)

Seriously, if you're going to have this service, for those who do indeed want it and also want the text message, at least send them a REAL text message instead of weird coded stuff that looks like spam.

Anyway, hope this solves the issue for everybody who is like me and wondered what the heck was up.

 

[eddard]

Re: Verizon service sending Stratosphere owners weird VZWNMN text

BAP refused to sync with wife's Strat yesterday & took out her contacts (all 252 of em.) Verizion person said there was a known issue & recommended putting contacts in Google & forget using BA. We did, ok now. Just FYI.

She did say they were hoping the problem was cleared up by the 19th.

 

[MofoMan2000]

Re: Verizon service sending Stratosphere owners weird VZWNMN text

OH MY GOD. I was wondering what the hell those texts were about.