Oh great, I just got my first international phone SMS scam spam. I’ve had the odd domestic SMS spam before, but this is the first like this. I hope it’s not the start of a flood.
It has a couple of hints that it’s probably a variation on the old Advance-fee/419/Nigerian scam — the claim that the sender is a Doctor; the USD dollars amount.
I know some will take the time to play along and bait these scammers. I don’t have that kind of time or inclination. If anybody else wants to, then great — just don’t use my name — I’m sure they’d be happy to hear from Mr Harry Potter or Mr Richard Cheney or Doctor Who or William Prince or Mr Dave Lister or whatever other name someone might make up.
Anybody else get one of these this morning?
6 replies on “Oh, great”
Haven’t had one, though I tend to be pretty careful whom I give my mobile number out to. Is your number listed anywhere public Daniel (eg PTUA site or something)?
My rule of thumb is: if you get SMS from an unknown number, no matter what the message is, ignore and delete. If you don’t reply they hopefully will stop.
Meanwhile there’s a number of threads on whirlpool about SMS spam which may be helpful:
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum/?action=threads_search&q=sms+spam&f=
Yep I got one when I pulled into the station carpark at 7:30. I thought to myself it’s a good thing they didn’t send it two hours earlier and wake me up, because then I’d have to learn how to bait them and cause them much fuss.
Thailand email address but Laos phone number. Interesting.
Funny, just heard Kate Langebrook(?) on Nova this morning talking about this.
She got one yesterday.
I also got one of these messages.
Yep me too, just waiting for an email from my dad now telling me that he got one too and if it could be by any chance one of these “internet scams”. lol