Scams

Scams

by Mike Masnick




Gullible Forwarders Own Mobile Phones Too

from the they're-everywhere! dept

What is it about a slightly different medium that makes people lose all sense of reason? For years, one of the most popular urban legends/hoaxes is that Bill Gates, AOL or Disney will give you prizes or money for forwarding on an email. It seems that some random person thought it would be funny to start a similar hoax via text messaging... and it worked. Vodafone is apparently now spending some time trying to track down the hoaxer who sent out text messages promising free air time on Vodafone to anyone who forwarded the message to 13 other users. However, where the guy got stupid was that he included a (non-emergency) police phone number to call for anyone who didn't get the credit. The police, as you might imagine, are pissed off at all of the phone calls they received, which could open the hoaxer up to criminal charges for interfering with the police.

5 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
 

Reader Comments (rss)

(Flattened / Threaded)

  1. Nov 7th, 2005 @ 2:46am

    Included a police number to call?

    by dohhhhhhh

    Really? That is pretty funny.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  2. Nov 7th, 2005 @ 4:05am

    No Subject Given

    by SV

    In my country the mobile operators actually gave 20 cars to people who sent SMS at a specified promo number (lottery). So don't be amazed someone believes this. It makes more sense than e-mails - since after all Vodaphone profits from the messages.

    Of course if you're smart you'd not buy into this at all, never mind if hoax or not.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  3. Nov 7th, 2005 @ 4:54am

    Something for nothing.

    Like comedy really. Text messaging is inside network.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  4. Nov 7th, 2005 @ 5:27am

    We can Only Hope

    by Dam

    We can only hope that these people don't vote.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  5. Nov 7th, 2005 @ 7:22am

    Stupid cell phone trick of the day

    Stupid cell phone trick of the day:
    With teleflip.com - A service that lets you send email to yourphonenumber@teleflip.com and have it delivered to the phone, regardless of carrier... anyone can send [costly?] email messages to anyone they want to send to, with whatever advertisement they want include - the sender doesn't need to know the recipient's carrier, he only needs a cell phone number.

    Now I wonder how many people are going to test this, using their own telephone number... ie; 2125551212@teleflip.com

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

Add Your Comment

Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now. Want one? Register here
Get Techdirt’s Daily Email
Plain Text HTML Save me a cookie
  • Plain Text: A CRLF will be replaced by break <br> tag, all other allowable HTML is intact
  • HTML: No formatting of any kind is done without explicitly being written in
  • Allowed HTML Tags: <b> <i> <p> <a> <em> <br> <strong> <blockquote> <hr> <tt>
Close
Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now. Want one? Register here
Get Techdirt’s Daily Email
Plain Text HTML Save me a cookie

Search Techdirt
And now, a word from our Sponsors..



Subscribe to Techdirt's Daily Email Newsletter

Techdirt's Daily Email Newsletter

Related Stories
Close
E-mail It