Phumelela Spam News

Knysna - Last Friday

Phumelela COO, David Attenborough called ABC late afternoon to state verbally that the practice of presenters plugging their own services such as premium SMS lines on Tellytrack would be stamped out.

It was agreed in what can be described as a freindly discussion that the spamming of peoples personal cell phones was completely unaccceptable, as was broadcasting the SMS numbers without stating the call costs.

We welcome Phumelela's stance on bringing about an end to this practice. So that brings closure on the whole matter......?

Not quite, actually not at all, Phumelela have done the right thing, however the question remains....how did the spammer get hold of peoples personal data...?

More to follow....

This is directly from the Zaki website:

2008/04/02 - SMS SERVICE DISCONTINUED

Due to various reasons, we have decided to stop the SMS service that was on offer to the public for R30 an sms.

www.zakiracing.com/News/ViewNewsArticle.aspx?newsid=48

Well done, Chris and to ABC for breaking this story. About time Phumelela reign in their employees who abuse their position.

And this after all the abuse hurled at the proprietors and viewers of ABC for exposing them.

Now where did Cab aka Clinton B get the personal data from ?

If it wasnt the Nhra, then who might it be ?

Cant wait for the full story !

Yes well done Chris, not sure how many people are aware of the work that goes on behind the scenes on an article/story of this magnitude?

great job!

chris "wiping" out the spam emails

Well, just got an SMS:


'Welcome A DELPECH who comes alive on Sat @ Turf (6) Just 4u. SMS DELPECH to 41407 DON'T MISS OUT R25 p/sms Optout'

Any idea how they got your cell number to send you this message Frodo...?

No idea; but I am a member of the RA ...

Getting e-mails to join Strydom/Zaki's online service. This after sms' stopped.

I also got Delpesch notice but my cell is available to anyone,but still annoying

Within 30 minutes of me posting this thread on 2nd April, I started to recieve spam SMS's for things like financial services, even video rental. I'll list them later. I got 7 in quick succession, I've never had spam for such services before.

Seems like someone is a bit upset about ABC carrying this story.

Here's a selection from last Friday

02/04/08 Call Budget for low car insurance
02/04/08 Accidental death and disability call Hollard
02/04/08 500k Life cover from Life Direct
02/04/08 Car and Life insurance from Life Direct
02/04/08 Denim Nation reckon I need some new jeans

Even a DVD rental shop in CPT is keen for my business and I live 500km's away....!!! might not be able to return the DVD's on time guys.

Coincidental I had never received spam from these guys before we ran the racing SMS tipping story, also had one or two mysery calls from number withheld and music playing when I answer.

The story we broke was in the public interest, Phumelela agreed it was a practice they did not support and just like the annonymous attacks on all of us from Sahd and Orion etc.... it was doing them no favours either, the above, if connected to our story is becoming a touch vindictive, imo.