Mobile phone spam
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Mobile phone spam is a form of spamming directed at the text messaging service of a mobile phone. It is described as mobile spamming, sms spam, but is most frequently referred to as m-spam.
In 2002 and 2003, frequent users of cell phone text messages began to see an increase in the number of unsolicited (and generally unwanted) commercial advertisements being sent to their cell phones through text messaging.
In the United States, this use is regulated by the Can Spam Act of 2003.
Often these messages consist of a simple request to call a number. Normal mobile phone etiquette often results in the call being returned by the user. When they then return the call, they are unaware that they have been fraudulently induced to call a premium-rate line. There is frequently an attempt to get them to hold on the line for as long as possible in order to maximise revenue from this fraud.
Another form of mobile phone fraud is the one-ring fraud, where an incoming call to a mobile phone is timed such that it will ring once, and then cut off before the user can answer. This leaves the missed call number on their phone, and the rest of the fraud is as above. In this case, it is the (real or apparent) calling number details which are being spammed to the phone, as these calls are made in their hundreds of thousands by autodialers at little or no cost to the originator, as there is no charge for calls which do not connect.
Both of these frauds can be combined with other frauds such as the advance fee fraud, as they act as a pre-screening stage for fraudsters to capture the telephone numbers of particularly trusting individuals.
As with spamming in general, there are usually no special laws against mobile phone spamming. However, existing laws can often be used to combat the problem. On June 10, 2004 Russian SMS spammer Dmitry Androsov was convicted for mobile phone spam by Chelyabinsk court. Dmitry was sued by Megafon, one of the largest Russian mobile operators, for sending SMS with expletives to more than 16000 mobile phone users. The fact that the sending was carried out using a Perl script allowed the court to convict him under the article 273 of the Russian Criminal Code (creation, use and distribution of malicious programs) to 1 year probational sentence and 3000 rouble (more than $100) fine.
See also
This article is part of the Spamming series.
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| E-mail spam | Messaging spam | Newsgroup spam | Spamdexing Blog spam | Mobile phone spam | VoIP spam |
| Make money fast | Advance fee fraud | Lottery scam | Phishing |
| History of spamming |
| Stopping e-mail abuse | DNSBL |