Category: text spam

NBI Arrested Alleged PH’s “Text Scam King”

Ronnie Bulaong Leave a comment

The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has arrested a suspect named Roan Sia aka Mark Tan yesterday in his house in Metro Manila. He is believed to be one of the country’s biggest text scam operator who, according to the agency, has amassed a total of Php100 million worth of credits from numerous victims.

According to the NBI, Tan’s modus operandi was to send out multiple SMS to random numbers, both here and abroad, pretending to be a friend or a relative who is in dire need of prepaid credits.

The prepaid credits that Tan allegedly took from unsuspecting victim are wired to one of the 50 cellular phones that he uses in his operation. He then transfers the credit to his own number which in turn can be turned into cold hard cash using the local telco’s money transfer services like Smart Money and Globe G-Cash.

Mark Tan is facing various charges including (but not limited to) violation of the Access Devices Regulation Act of 1998 (RA 8484) and large-scale estafa.

[GMA News]

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Smart taps GSMA to improve security against spam

Ronnie Bulaong Leave a comment

Lazada Philippines

Smart Communications has announced that the company is currently in talks with GSM Association regarding a service that would heighten the telco’s effort against SMS spams and scams.

In a statement, the MVP-owned telco said that GSMA’s service will complement its existing security measures to protect its subscribers from abusive users who use SMS as a mode to offer services and, worse, ask for prepaid load from an unsuspecting user. The telco added that te anti-spam service is the same as the one currently being used by top service providers like Verizon and AT&T.

Prior to the announcement, Smart has setup an additional security feature when transferring load to a user to avoid unwanted or accidental load transfers. Now users who are about to transfer a load to a user will receive a computer-generated confirmation message from the telco notifying them about the transaction.

To complete the process of the load transfer, users will have to reply “YES” and send it to 808 within 15 minutes from the time they receive the notification message. The transaction will be revoked if the subscriber failed to comply with the aforementioned step.

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NTC bans two companies from sending spam messages, seeks to fine them

Kevin Bruce Francisco Leave a comment

The NTC or National Telecommunications Commission has ordered health insurance Caritas Health Shield Inc. and training provider Center for Global Best Practices to stop bombarding Globe Telecom users with spam messages. This is due to the complaints filed by Globe itself regarding unsolicited text messages sent to its subscribers urging them to avail of the companies’ services.

SPAM

“This NTC directive should provide some breathing space for Globe customers who constantly receive annoying spam messages,” said Froilan Castelo, General Counsel of Globe Telecom. “Globe will continue to exercise all legal means possible to ease the burden inflicted on our customers by companies that employ text spamming as a marketing strategy. Such companies should be forewarned that similar complaints will be filed against them unless they unilaterally stop sending annoying spam messages to our customers,” he added.

In addition, Globe wants both Caritas and CGBP to pay fines and penalties on top of permanently banning its agents from spamming their subscribers again.

Globe isn’t stopping there. They’re currently in the process of filing complaints against two more unnamed local business organizations that are reportedly sending promotional spams.

How their system works is they first send warnings to numbers reported of sending spam messages, while those confirmed get their numbers deactivated from the service.

Have you received such text messages? For Globe and Smart users, you can report these spammers by clicking through the link.

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