Smart, the wireless unit of PLDT, warns the public about fake rewards scams on SMS urging customers to redeem their ‘points’ for ‘premium rewards’ before they expire by clicking the attached link that leads to a payment site. Smart denies ownership of the ‘smart-com-ph’ site mentioned in these fraudulent SMS. Smart has since reported the URL and blocked it from its network.
“We remind our customers to double-check the text messages that they receive. As a rule, Smart does not include clickable links in SMS sent to our customers. We urge our customers to report suspicious messages to official Smart platforms,” said Alex O. Caeg, head of consumer wireless business at Smart.
As part of its #CyberSmart awareness campaign, Smart reminds customers to be vigilant against such fake rewards scams:
- Do not reply to unverified text messages.
- Block or delete suspicious messages with links. Never open these links.
- Scams often lure customers with too-good-to-be-true, attention-grabbing offers. These include winning the ‘grand prize’ of a raffle you don’t recall joining.
- Be wary of entities asking for personal or contact details, or any form of payment to redeem prizes or gifts.
Since Smart intensified efforts against criminal activities facilitated over wireless services, it has blacklisted nearly 200,000 mobile numbers involved in these scams in the first quarter of the year. It has also blacklisted close to five million malicious URLs tied to phishing, spam, and hoaxes.
If you receive suspicious messages or calls, please report them to [email protected] or to the verified social media pages — Smart Communications on Facebook and @SmartCares on X – or call the hotline at *888.