SENATOR Cynthia Villar was having a bad hair day and was recently in a snit with the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) on account of the, quote unquote, inaction of the NTC over the involvement of the foundation she runs, the Villar Foundation, in text scams.
She pines that the NTC should at least “partner” with telcos, so that private entities, such as the Villar Foundation, would not be victimized in malign misrepresentations by mobile fraudsters, let alone keep their subscribers “protected” from the bug.
Everybody, who has ever experienced receiving the text messages in question, could wage a mobile war against the NTC and take the cudgels with Villar. But to say that subscribers need protection is over the top because, really, we don’t need protection; we need education. There are people who got the clap and fell victims to text scams, but you could think of it as part of life and, thus, completely natural, at least as completely natural as hearing of friends who stepped on a dog poop, said “Holy crap!” and then laughed it off as the world’s way of congratulating them for being stupid.
I remember my mom receiving a dubious text message purportedly informing her she won in an electronic raffle supposedly by—what do you know—“the Villar Foundation.” The first time we realized this we were all trembling, and my mom literally phoned all our relatives and Jesus and Joseph and Mary, until we finally had the light-bulb moment and I asked whether she did have a raffle entry.
She had none and, for that matter, hadn’t joined any raffle draw to begin with.
It was funny just as soon as you get the hang of it, and it felt like, say, when you’re an alpha male and your girlfriend confronts you about a text message informing you that you won in a Miss Gay Barangay beauty contest.
But there are days a dubious text message isn’t funny anymore. My friend Rafa was talking about a text message telling her that her brother figured in an—knock on wood—accident, and then asking for cell-phone load (because the movies are true: Shit happens and you run out of cell-phone load when it does). She said that it was on a weekend and the family was complete and bonding on the beach. So, apparently, the fraudster was terrible at second-guessing, but, no matter, there was no way she said she was going to take it sitting down.
So Rafa filed a complaint by just a snap filling out of blanks at her service provider, Globe, which, she read somewhere, has become more hyper-allergic to these fraudsters, put up a Web page (http://www.globe.com.ph/stopspam) solely for these reports and deactivated numbers proven to be repetitive sources of text scams.
Numbers reported for the first time are sent warnings, and then blocked altogether if the numbers get notorious and reported again. This means that, as per the Globe Telecom #StopSpam campaign, “voice, SMS and data services will not be available to the numbers in question and that service restoration for such numbers will only be undertaken if the suspect fraudster contests the move and shows proof he is not a spammer.”
That is a nice gesture other telcos also should and is already undertaking. But, as Villar puts it, because it is cheap, it is so easy to get another SIM card.
Text scam or not, it will also be nice if the SIM becomes per se the subscribers’ ID, gets registered and authenticated early on the first time it is used (like how you do it on a brand-new iPhone—think Apple ID) and that it becomes as pricey, as lifetime and as personal as a house address.
This could be shrugged off as making mountains out of molehills because, if you really have to think about it at all, text scams are just interruptions no different, as ubiquitous and as harmless to subscribers as big full-page ads or coupons or spam hawking Viagra one, then again, can always simply choose to ignore.
Or you can otherwise reach your tipping point so as you wish you could bubble wrap yourself to insulate you from all these nuisances. And, in fact, you can.
Another friend, Christian, taught me this trick one can do to stem spam on an Android phone. Turns out, our mobile phones are hardwired to keep so much negativity out of our lives, and all one needs is to go to Settings, click Spam Message Settings, click Add to Spam Numbers, add the spammers’ numbers in question then go back and click Add to Spam Phrases the usual spam phrases one receives.
As with Apple, the instructions are very much the same. Open the Message, tap Contact, then tap the wee “i” button that appears. You’ll see a (mostly blank) contact card for the spammer who sent you the message, which will prompt you to scroll down to the bottom of the screen and tap “Block this caller.”
Not to be too organized, he said, “but you don’t let the bed bugs bite.” You hear these words and it occurs to you that you’re dealing with pests rather than people, and that, more than a telco reform, you need Baygon!
Image credits: Image credit Jimbo Albano
