New SMS Scam From China
By Azlan Othman

Bandar Seri Begawan - Not long after the police warned the public against Short Message Service (SMS) scams and not to fall prey to such tactics, another scam has re-surfaced this time from China.

Some mobile phone users claimed that they received a brief SMS stating that they were the lucky winner, of US$158,000 prize money.

Sent in Mandarin, the message stated that the sender of the SMS, which claimed to be from a company in China, requested recipients to call a 15-digit phone number for more details.

The SMS says in Chinese, "Congratulations, your four-digit mobile - phone number has won the second prize of US$158,000."

The sender then asks recipients to contact the company in China. Many who received such messages were puzzled as to how their mobile phone numbers could have been chosen as the winner.

Since early this year, some mobile phone users claimed to have received brief SMS’s stating that they were lucky winners of US$600,000 prize money.

The sender of the SMS claimed to be from a company in the Philippines and requested recipients' full address and bank account numbers to allow the company to send them the prize money.

The message then asked recipients to send a deposit of $1,000 as processing fee before the winning prize money could be sent.

Police said last month that some gullible recipients who sent the deposit fee soon found that their money had disappeared without a trace and that no such company existed.

The Bulletin had published stories of several SMS scams and how a couple was tricked into sending a `processing fee' for a non-existent `prize money'.

The couple had received a message saying "You have won a big reward of 2.5 million pesos amounting to $70,000 as your mobile phone number has been selected as a winner of the last four-digit mobile phone competition."

The message went on to instruct them to deposit money amounting to $1,562 to an account in the Philippines through a money transfer agent in the capital. -- Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin

Click Here To Have Your Say On This Story

Brudirect.com News