Following a significant rise in scam SMS messages over the festive period, Nokia has introduced a consumer awareness campaign to fight this increasing threat.
According to Nokia SA, consumers fell victim to a recent bout of SMS scams offering recipients money in the form of a lottery. An example of the hoax message reads: 'Congratulations! Your mobile no. won R95 000, in XXXX Yearly Promo. With ticket no. 0166p. For claims call 078 797 5411'.
“We've received a few customer enquiries about the latest SMS scam to authenticate their prizes, and a few of our staff also received these messages,” explains Tania Steenkamp, Nokia SA communications manager.
“Upon notification we briefed our Nokia Careline to advise all callers that this is a scam and that they should not respond to any such messages. We further issued an alert to the media to raise consumer awareness about the scams,” she continues.
As these scams and hoaxes are run by external parties, Nokia is not able to stop them, states Steenkamp. The company's focus is on alerting consumers about these kinds of activities, to ensure they are aware that there are a number of these types of scams going on in many different formats, she adds.
Because these scams are not related to device security but rather opportunistic parties prying on people's vulnerabilities, Nokia advises consumers to ignore these messages and to report them to The Consumer Fraud Reporting Centre.
“A key point to make to consumers is firstly that Nokia does not participate in any lucky-draws or lotteries, and further, if they have not entered any competitions, then they should not expect to win anything,” offers Steenkamp.
She adds that customers should not respond or react to any unsolicited e-mails or SMS messages, as Nokia does not run any random competitions or send out SMS notifications to any of its winners.
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