Scam Alert

A couple of weeks ago, I got this SMS, a classic spam:

Sender: +639277904022
Message: NOTICE: Ur mobile phone # had won 500,000.00 frm PCSO "PAMILYANG PANGKABUHAYAN" CALL NOW I'm TINA R. LOPEZ per dtincr permit#3082 series of 2007. (CONGRATULATIONS).

And when I exit from the message, it says, the sender requests for a reply. Of course I did not reply nor call. I know for a fact that I did not join any raffle or contest. Heck, I haven't even played the lotto for a while now and I'm not aware of any raffle by PCSO. If there's one, I would have probably caught an ad on tv. And, the sender is not the usual 290, 2966, 2343 etc. This Tina Lopez probably "got" my number by random, hoping to get a reply or a call. The MO is that, she would tell me to deposit an amount to a certain bank before she can give me the "actual" winnings, claiming that it's for tax purposes and/or fees.

The NTC is well aware of things like these and they (together with the organizations and companies used like PCSO, GMA7 etc) have been working to disseminate information around so the number of victims will be minimized. But the fact that I still receive messages like this, means that some people haven't learned their lesson and still fall victims to these scams. Hmmmm