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Old 09-02-2013, 19:31
Thine Wonk
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I think everyones hates the plague of spam SMS messages, from PPI claims to just plain scams. It seems that certain networks are being abused on a grand scale and that it's only in the last couple of months that they have started taking some serious action.

Giffgaff seems to be getting abused like crazy as they give away 'unlimited' SMS messages and the rewards structure seems to pay people for abusing the network.

Giffgaff are banning a huge number of sims daily as people are plugging the sims into PC software and just spam spam spam until it's disconnected.

The amount of free sims GG give away and the fact that they can be bought from 3rd party members so easily without the spammer registering, and the fact they give completely unlimited SMS means they seem the be making it so easy for scammers.

When they first started their investigation they banned 136 in 1 day.

Here's what some of the members who distribute sims are saying.
To be honest though, I wish giffgaff had investigated earlier. I like the person above, got 30 sim orders in a period of 1 hour. I reported it, they said nothing's strange and reset my limit. That limit was spammed the next day, using up all my sim orders again!

I complained again and they said it's normal. Obviously it was these.
Well, I was disappointed today, to find out that 8 of my activations were spamers sims.
Thats £40 i thought I had, now gone!!
By my calculation, I am 13 activations missing from December payback too, but not been informed if this was because of the spammer cancellations.
Waaah Lost £100s on this Pretty sure they were genuine too....

Any pattern to members who are targeted by these goons?
i had 14 removed , batch of 30 sims ordered in sept via url link , and the 14 activated within a few days of the each other last month
It just goes on and on and on...

It seems to me that Giffgaff is helping these scammers by their method of distributing sims and giving totally unlimited, rather than 5000 texts, which is more than any normal person needs in a month.

It is only in December that they decided to start banning all these sims on a big scale and taking the payback back from the people who distributed the sims!

The ICO are investigating offices full of people going from sim card to sim card and sending millions of SMS messages on an industrial scale. They hope to bring some prosecutions and feel they are getting closer to finding out exactly how these organised groups operate.
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Old 09-02-2013, 19:51
Daveoc64
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Every time I've checked, the spam messages I get are from Vodafone numbers.

I don't really see how Giffgaff is any more or less abusable than any other network.
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Old 09-02-2013, 20:02
Thine Wonk
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That's interesting as Vodafone are working with the ICO, so the ICO say.

The Giffgaff forums are full of affiliates having their £5's taken back because so many of the sims are going to text spammers and getting barred.

I think it's obvious you are going to be a target if you offer totally unlimited SMS messages surely? and if your model is that people can just request 30 sims in one go.
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Old 09-02-2013, 20:12
Thine Wonk
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The ICO say:

If you have responded, and have evidence that suggests your details have been passed on to one of these claims companies, please call our Helpline on 0303 123 1113. We would be particularly interested to discuss your case and we will tell you if we need you to send us more details.
They also say:
We have also, with the aid of a telecommunications company, identified an organisation that we believe is responsible for sending out unsolicited text messages. We are pursuing lines of enquiry into that organisation. Likewise we are also working with other regulators in order to identify non-compliant organisations.
We have identified that the use of unregistered SIM cards is one of the main methods for the sending of mass SMS messages. We are meeting with members of the mobile phone industry to discuss strategies for identifying rogue SMS marketers.
In our latest action we served two monetary penalties totaling £440,000 on two owners of a marketing company which has sent millions of unlawful spam texts over the past three years. We also intend to take other enforcement action against the pair for a breach of related legislation
I was just amazed by how prevalent it was on the Giffgaff thread, with so many affiliates saying how much 'payback' is being taken back because of it, and seemingly only action taken since December.

You have to question whether it's wise for companies to not set a limit on the number of texts, even if it's 5000, which is over 160 a day and also whether it's wise to offer to send out whole batches of huge numbers of sims.
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Old 09-02-2013, 20:18
Daveoc64
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I think it's obvious you are going to be a target if you offer totally unlimited SMS messages surely? and if your model is that people can just request 30 sims in one go.
I don't see why you're singling out Giffgaff here.

Other than Three, all of the networks do that in some form.

No UK network permits this sort of usage, but it's just near impossible to stop it - all they can do is cancel the accounts after it's happened.
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Old 09-02-2013, 20:23
Thine Wonk
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I don't see why you're singling out Giffgaff here.

Other than Three, all of the networks do that in some form.

No UK network permits this sort of usage, but it's just near impossible to stop it - all they can do is cancel the accounts after it's happened.
That's where I completely disagree. It's very easy to stop. You see a rate of messages from 1 sim sending out message after message it should get an automatic block from sending SMS for an hour. You could also implement an anti-spam system that looks for 'ppi claims' on messages being sent in bulk.

As a network it would be wise have a fair use policy to protect other mobile phone users from this.

It's also not wise to have a model where you're willing to ship literally whole batches of sims to people who in turn will distribute them, this makes traceability hard and investigation even harder.
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Old 09-02-2013, 20:26
Thine Wonk
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Vodafone: http://www.vodafone.co.uk/about-this...ited/index.htm

This offer is subject at all times to a fair usage policy each month of 3000 text messages.

O2's unlimited texts FUP is 2,990

Three don't give more than 5,000
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Old 09-02-2013, 20:27
Daveoc64
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That's where I completely disagree. It's very easy to stop. You see a rate of messages from 1 sim sending out message after message it should get an automatic block from sending SMS for an hour. You could also implement an anti-spam system that looks for 'ppi claims' on messages being sent in bulk.
But then this would end up getting it wrong and causing problems for paying customers.

As a network it would be wise have a fair use policy to protect other mobile phone users from this.
I don't see how this is a "fair use" issue, as it's:

a) Against the law
b) Against the terms and conditions of the contract with ALL UK networks

It's also not wise to have a model where you're willing to ship literally whole batches of sims to people who in turn will distribute them, this makes traceability hard and investigation even harder.
Again, I don't see why you're targeting Giffgaff here. You can get SIMs in bulk from all of the networks with virtually no cost or risk of traceability. If anything, the other networks are easier because you can get their SIMs for 99p in a supermarket - pay in cash and no need to register.

Vodafone: http://www.vodafone.co.uk/about-this...ited/index.htm

This offer is subject at all times to a fair usage policy each month of 3000 text messages.
I'm not sure what your point is. 3000 spam messages is an acceptable amount?

What do they do at 3000? Warn you? Cut you off? Charge you?

The spammer isn't going to care.
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Old 09-02-2013, 20:30
Thine Wonk
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But then this would end up getting it wrong and causing problems for paying customers.



I don't see how this is a "fair use" issue, as it's:

a) Against the law
b) Against the terms and conditions of the contract with ALL UK networks



Again, I don't see why you're targeting Giffgaff here. You can get SIMs in bulk from all of the networks with virtually no cost or risk of traceability. If anything, the other networks are easier because you can get their SIMs for 99p in a supermarket - pay in cash and no need to register.



I'm not sure what your point is. 3000 spam messages is an acceptable amount?

What do they do at 3000? Warn you? Cut you off? Charge you?

The spammer isn't going to care.
Vodafone have a FUP on unlimited texts
O2 have a FUP on unlimuted texts
Three only offer 5,000

Yes you could buy them from shops at £1 a time and then register them, but when a network is offering totally unlimited and will ship 50 to you for free then it's obvious it's going to be used for SMS spam.

Spam filters wouldn't affect ordinary customers as they wouldn't be sending huge amounts of automated texts about PPI.
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Old 09-02-2013, 20:36
Daveoc64
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Vodafone have a FUP on unlimited texts
O2 have a FUP on unlimuted texts
Three only offer 5,000
Having a FUP doesn't actually mean anything if the limit is far in excess of what is acceptable. Nor is it any good if it's not enforced automatically and immediately.

We're back to the age old problem of monthly limits.

Sending 3000 texts in 5 minutes doesn't sound acceptable to me. Sending 4000 over a month, does.

Yes you could buy them from shops at £1 a time and then register them, but when a network is offering totally unlimited and will ship 50 to you for free then it's obvious it's going to be used for SMS spam.
Some of the other networks WILL do that though. Vodafone is pretty tight on sending multiple SIMs to the same address.

Spam filters wouldn't affect ordinary customers as they wouldn't be sending huge amounts of automated texts about PPI.
I think this is a little naive!
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Old 09-02-2013, 20:40
Thine Wonk
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Spam filters FP due to complexities in SPF, blocklisted IP addresses and other things. These are unlikely to effect SMS messages being sent outbound through the network the customer is on. At most all it would affect is businesses doing marketing, but then they shouldn't be sending them via phone contract sims as there are SMS gateways and services ran by reputable companies for that.

The reason why I highlight Giffgaff is because they have a big thread showing just how commonly their sims are being used for mass spamming. Loads of users are having their payback taken back because these are being actively used on a huge scale.

I believe that they have created an environment that has made them a target. No FUP unlike O2, Voda etc, willingness to ship huge amounts of sims and until December it seems a lot of the scammers were also getting payback for their trouble.
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Old 09-02-2013, 20:58
Stig
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It should be possible to create algorithms which spot spam texts.

Spammers text to 1000s of texts to unique numbers, whereas real people send repeated texts to a smaller group of people.
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Old 09-02-2013, 21:51
Thine Wonk
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Exactly, also the rate at which the texts go out and the volume should lead to an immediate block regardless of the content. If you're able to send several a second or more than 50 a minute that isn't a human. Once that has happened for 10 minutes it could trigger an immediate block on texts for a set period and a message to the user.

So what I'm saying is there are things that can be done. SMS spam is frustrating and annoying people right across the country. Many people are getting many spam messages a month. I know I get about one a week and I'm annoyed that a lack of any responsible FUP and batch shipping of sim cards if exasperating the problem.

All networks except one have taken measures to reduce the impact by having a FUP or limit on SMS.

FUP / Limit
Three 3,000
Orange 3,000
Tesco 3,000
O2 2,990
Vodafone 3,000
Virgin 3,000
T-mobile 200 different numbers per month

Giffgaff - totally unlimited and happy to mail out mass batches of sim cards. That's why I'm singling them out, it's irresponsible and it leads to more SMS spam for all of us.

You only have to read the Giffgaff forum to see just how much the network is being abused for SMS spam.
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Old 09-02-2013, 23:24
wrexham103.4
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always used to get spam sms's on O2 dont get any on tmobile
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