Office of Fair Trading warns on SMS scams

The Office of Fair Trading has embarked on a somewhat confusing campaign to warn young people of the dangers of scam text messaging, in an effort to stop those aged between 18 and 24 losing money to SMS rip off merchants.

The OFT has sent out “thousands” of text messages to the yoof which read ‘Urgent! U may have won £1k cash with ‘2 Good 2 B True.’ Then the organisation dashes the hopes of the recipient with a follow on message shortly afterwards, explaining there is no prize and the two SMS are part of a scam awareness campaign. I can imagine a lot of disgruntled young people getting slightly annoyed at the government for raising their hopes of a big fat prize and then crushing them minutes later, but it’s all in a good cause.

The OFT is also trying to raise awareness of its SMSus service, where users can text in a shortcode or premium rate number and will get an SMS back explaining how much the number will cost, among other details. Sounds like a handy service – the number’s 76787.