Hit by text messaging scam

ON Dec 19 last year, I received a text message from a 33226 number. The message started off with “RM6”. I treated it as just another junk message and ignored it. I continued to receive the same message from the same 33226 number for the next three days.

On Jan 1, I also received a similar message from the 33226 number.

When my telephone bill arrived, I was horrified to see that I was charged a total of RM30 for these five messages at RM6 each.

I went to my telecommunication service provider in Penang to complain about being charged for unsolicited messages. There, I was told that to stop such messages, I only needed to reply “STOP ALL” (this actually works).

I demanded a waiver for the RM30 charges as the messages were unsolicited, but the person attending to me could not promise that I would get it. I was annoyed.

To add salt to the wound, the telco worker remarked that I must have accessed an advertisement to get such messages to be sent to me. I didn’t, but even if I had, how would that explain why, for four consecutive days (Dec 19 to 22), I was charged RM6 per day? Had I been interested in the service (which was a gaming site), I would have accessed it without having to be constantly reminded by text messages from the number.

Malaysians have been warned not to reply to messages sent from numbers unknown to them to prevent their private information from being phished. That was why I simply ignored these messages. I was being prudent.

Telco companies should not allow their services to be used by unscrupulous businesses to make money through this process, which, to me, is an illegal activity.

Imagine how easy it is for such businesses to make money by simply sending out millions of unsolicited messages and charging the recipients RM6 for each text.

Proceeds from this illegal activity must surely be deposited into the accounts of these unscrupulous companies by the service providers, which means the telco companies are possible partners to the “crime”.

The telco companies should not only waive the charges, but they should also not allow their service to be used by these criminals.

On Jan 13, the nightmare began again. This time, I received an unsolicited message from 32278 that was charged RM5.