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Sunday 22 May 2011

Another hoax?

Hi all,

I have just received the following bbm's within minutes of each other:

BBM 1

A 4yr old boy went missing in heaton park yesterday he was wearing shorts and a thomas tank top and jelly shoes, If seen ring 07876355234 please pass this on to all your followers and send the message out to your friends, his parents are really worried.

I would like to point out a few things with regards to the above.


  1. Firstly, there is no Heaton Park in South Africa.  Heaton Park is in Manchester in the UK, so if you do not reside in the area then it is pointless sending this message on.
  2. The message simply states "yesterday" with no date given.  After doing a little research, the earliest post I managed to find was 5 Feb 2011 - in this instance "yesterday" is long gone so again, don't waste your time, even if you do live in the area.
  3. The grammar is atrocious and therefore cannot be taken seriously.  In addition, I could not find any official news as one would expect to find under such circumstances, i.e.: police reportings, and neither are there any photo's accompanying the post as would usually be the case.
  4. Heaton Park has a web site that reports on news surrounding the park.  There is no mention of any child going missing in the park.
IGNORE THIS AND DO NOT PASS ON


BBM 2

Dear All,

Don't accept a request from Ashanti (219bf588) she's a hacker. Tell everyone on your list because if somebody on your list adds her you get her on your list too and she'll figure out your blackberry's ID and address, so copy and paste this message to everyone cause if she hacks their email she hacks your email too!!!!!!!!

The question to ask here is whether a blackberry can be hacked by accepting a request from someoneor not? I have not yet been able to substantiate whether this is a hoax or not.  Research didn't yield anything useful as there were some pretty good arguments for both sides of the fence.  I have forwarded this to Brett Christensen from Hoax-Slayer who is pretty seasoned at sniffing out whether something is a hoax or not and have left him to do the digging.  I have no doubt that he will source something informative and be able to back it up.

WILL POST AN UPDATE ONCE FEEDBACK HAS BEEN RECEIVED.


In the mean time, here are some confirmed Blackberry hoaxes that are doing the rounds.  If you receive any one of these please do not pass them on, rather inform the person that sent you the message that it's a hoax.


HOAX #1

Subject: You have won Blackberry Award

BLACKBERRY 12TH ANNIVERSARY AWARDS CENTRE, # BLACKBERRY UK & IRELAND.


Dear Award winner,

Award Reference code: BBRIM568A2011

File number: BB255/647/390

This is to inform you that you have won yourself an Award of Eight hundred thousand British Pounds (800,000 GBP) in the Blackberry 12th year Anniversary Awards as organized by the Anniversary Centre of Blackberry Inc, held in London United Kingdom,

BlackBerry is a line of mobile e-mail and Smartphone devices developed and designed by company Research In Motion (RIM).

The Anniversary Centre of Blackberry Inc selected your email id as one of the 120 chosen fortunate winners to receive this award. Promotion. Awards MUST be claimed by the email owner ONLY, not later than 30 days from the day of notification.

Please you are advised to file for your claim immediately through our agent Mr. Allen Mohammed Immediately by providing him with the bellow stated information:
1. Full name……………….
2. Country…………….
3. Age…………………
4. Occupation………………..
5. Nationality ………………
6. Telephone/Fax Numbers……………..

Director of Peoples Operations:
Name: Mr. Allen Mohammed
Tel: +44 8447747530
Fax: +44 8447742753

E-Mail: allenmohammed@*******

Please do not reply if you are NOT the owner of this email address. Congratulations once again!!

Sincerely Yours,
Dr. Williams Jordan (Zonal Coordinator)

This is a classic fraud scam and although much has been published about handing your personal and banking details out to complete strangers, unfortunately people continue to fall victim to this.  As much as you would like to believe that your prayers have been answered and you have a large sum of money coming to you, this is not the case. 

IGNORE THIS MESSAGE OR PAY THE PRICE.


HOAX #2

Hello, greetings from RIM (Research In Motion) proprietors of BlackBerry. This message is to inform all of our users, that our servers have recently been really full, so we are asking for your help to fix this problem. We need our active users to re-send this message to everyone on your contact list in order to confirm our active users that use BlackBerry Messenger, if you do not send this message to all your BlackBerry Messenger contacts then your account will remain inactive with the consequence of losing all your contacts.

We apologize for the inconvenience but this is the only way possible to resolve this problem. Sincerely Research in Motion. For more information visit:
www.blackberry.com/inactiveuser

IGNORE AND DO NOT PASS ON.  THIS IS CHAIN MAIL.


HOAX #3

Subject: FW: Blackberry Storm Promotion
Dear All,

Blackberry is giving away free phones as part of their promotional drive.

All you need to do is send a copy of this email to 8 people; and you will receive your phone in less than 24 hrs. Please note that if you send to more than 20 people you will receive two phones.

Please do not forget to send a copy to: amanda.lee@blackberry.com

With Regards,

Amanda Lee (Marketing Manager)

IGNORE AND DO NOT PASS ON.  THIS IS CHAIN MAIL.

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