Citibank SMS SPAM: Reloaded

It seems like this "little blog that could" is actually being read by people!

Anyway,  last night, Mr. Jorge V. Sarmiento of NTC posted a comment on my previous post on Citibank's SMS SPAM and here's his reply:

jorge v sarmiento said...

ON citibank SMS SPAM!

hi im mr. jorge v. sarmiento of the NTC. erwin oliva of pdi inq7 sent me your blog message about the citibank promo or advertisement. it appears not to be a text spam. because the advertiser is mentioned, the dti authorization too,and there's an opt out mechanism. the text scam circular says, ( its in the ntc website, www.ntc@gov.ph ), when you opt out walang bayad. you have to check if may bayad because you can complain to NTC and we have a Text Spam Committee to attend to complaints . we are serious about complaints against text spam. try it, para we can check if our guys are not serious with their job.

jorge v sarmiento
jorgevsarmiento@yahoo.com

First of all, I would like to acknowledge the prompt attention the NTC is giving my rant.  However I would like to clarify some things:

According to wikipedia, "Spamming is the use of any electronic communications medium to send unsolicited messages in bulk, indiscriminately...".  The message I received was sent electronically, it was unsolicited and it was sent indiscriminately.  If the message I received was not SPAM, then we can probably assign a different term to it -- MALING perhaps?

But seriously, what miffs me is the fact that the message arrives on my cellphone saying i have to reply to it to stop receiving further messages.  As I've said, this is a known ploy of email spammers to verify the existence/validity of an email address.  As a long-time I.T. practitioner, the fact that I have to reply to Citibank's SMS to "opt out" leaves a sour taste in my mouth.  Couldn't they just program their system in such a way that it remove people's numbers from their list if they do not reply at all?

Again, I would like to express my appreciation for the attention this rant has gotten from the government.

technorati tags:SMS, SPAM, citibank

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