Tap your smartphone and approve a charge on your phone bill? That's not possible, is it?
Yes, it is.
And the Federal Trade Commission says Jesta Digital, a mobile marketing company, used this little-known billing technique to cram unwanted and unauthorized charges onto consumers' mobile phone bills.
Jesta, a California company that also does business as Jamster, has settled the claims with the FTC, agreeing to pay a refund to customers, a $1.2 million fine and change the way it does business.
In its complaint, the FTC said Jesta ran pop-up ads designed to look like virus alerts that appeared when people played the "Angry Birds" game using the free version of the mobile app on their Android phones. Rovio Entertainment, the company that created "Angry Birds," is not named in the complaint.
(Read more: The near impossible battle against hackers everywhere)
These were paid ads designed to "dupe consumers into clicking on the banner ads," according to the FTC. They featured a little green robot similar to the Droid character and were made to look like a legitimate warning that a virus or viruses had been detected.
"They were frightening people into thinking their mobile device was infected and they had the software to fix it," said Lois Greisman, associate director at the FTC. But in reality, the investigation found, Jesta did not actually scan any devices, and it detected no viruses.