Jeddah: "Congratulations! Today is the anniversary of SAWA. Forward this SMS to 10 other people and you will get SR100 credited to your account."
If you subscribe to Saudi Telecom's SAWA mobile services and have received this or a similiar message, delete it and warn your friends. It is a hoax and should not be taken seriously.
Several versions of the message are being circulated around in both English and Arabic claiming that by forwarding the message to 10 other users, you will be awarded by either having SR100 credited to your account or getting 100 minutes of free talk time.
The only purpose of this message is to dupe people out of money.
Saudi Telecom told the local media yesterday that it has nothing to do with the phony SMS spam, and stated emphatically that they only issue SMS promotions for the two Eid holidays each year.
One way to tell, said the company, is that promotions for free minutes will not only appear on your phone, but also in the local newspapers and television.
STC spokesman Gusay Al-Fawaz speculated that the SMS started as a prank from one individual that snowballed into the mobile phones of a large number of people.
These people then, without asking themselves how they would be able to claim their free minutes (since the message didn't have this information), quickly forwarded the SMS to at least ten people on their own contact list.
As a public service message, Arab News would like to advise people to think twice before impulsively forwarding messages they received. And this rule applies to e-mail, too.
© Arab News 2007
