How would you like to open your cell phone to find a text saying you’d won $2,000? Of course you would – but then you’d be suspicious, wondering why you’d received it. That’s exactly what happened to 25,000 people between the ages of 18 and 24 in Britain. But just as they’d had the chance to imagine what they were going to do with the money theyreceived a second text, telling them it was all a scam, according to the BBC. It has been organized by the Office of FairTrading (OFT) as part of their Scams Awareness Month campaign. They chose that particular age group because six per cent of all scam victims in the UK are between the ages of 16 and 24. Thenumbers came from the Information Commissioner’s office, taken from a list of people who’d agreed to receive marketing text messages. With young people using text messaging toregularly – the statistic is that they send on average 100 texts a month, but that seems very low – it was a good way of reaching them, and also of highlight a new service called PhonePayPlus. This lets discover details about suspicious premium numbers. The service, which is free to most people, gives details of the premium numbersservice provider and how to contact them, along with the cost of calling the premium line. There were no figures given on how many used PhonePayPlus when they reached the message from the OFTthat read, "Urgent! U may have won £1k cash with ‘2 Good 2 B True’." Director of consumer protection at the OFT, Mike Haley, said, "Young people can fall forexactly the same types of scam as anyone else, often delivered through the latest technology. We hope that our innovative approach of sending fake scam text messages will remind young consumers to beon their guard if they receive a suspicious offer."
