For seven years, I didn’t have a landline phone. As they say in the mobile industry, I had cut the cord. My cell phone and I were free to roam (and believe me, it roamed constantly) across the country. Those were the most telemarketing-free years of my life. Never did I receive a call from a stranger who mispronounced my name and then had the audacity to ask for money. My email may have been full of unwanted solicitations, but my mobile was not.

Until recently. Ladies, gentlemen, I have received text message SPAM.

I’ll let that sink in…

Just a little bit more…

Yes, SPAM. A message I did not request. Did not sign up for. No opt-in. No consent. No permission.

And on top of that, it was a scam! Maybe you’ve heard of those scam artists who “mistakenly” leave a message on the wrong person’s answering machine, offering a hot stock tip. As the innocent dupes buy the stock in droves, the stock price rises, and when it gets high enough, the scammers sell their shares and leave those people high and dry. Well, that’s exactly what this was, except instead of a voice on my answering machine, it was a text sent to my phone. Here’s what it said:

(Hey it’s Gregorio) Grew
like a weed
UTEI is the symbol of the
hottest stock this
year, UTEC Inc (nanotech
play)

Gregorio? Seriously? Of all the fake names in all the languages in all the world, he picks this one? I suppose if you want to ensure that people think the message was sent from a stranger, Gregorio is the way to go. After all, I don’t know any Gregorios. But I’m not sure I’d find a stock tip credible if it came from a Gregorio.

Gregorio or not, I was pretty ticked off. As someone who is pretty familiar with the MLA guidelines, I know that sending unsolicited messages is a no-no. That it’s against the rules to buy lists of mobile numbers. But I suppose that’s what these scammers did. This is why mobile marketing gets a bad rap. Not because of legitimate companies who are marketing to consenting customers, but because of greedy Gregorios who want to rip people off.

Grr.

Okay, I’m done venting. On to lighter news. I read about this really cool SMS program called ChaCha the other day. It’s kind of like the Google program that I gushed about last time. ChaCha is like a personal research assistant on your phone. Got a question you need an answer to? Got a phone? That’s all you need.

Just text your question to 242242 (ChaCha) and you’ll get the answer back. Not impressed? Then try this on for size. It’s not a search engine that answers your question. It’s a real, live person. Yes, that’s right. Not an automated system. Not an algorithm. A human being. So, even if you have a difficult or hard to understand question, chances are ChaCha can still answer it for you. Let me prove it to you.

At first I asked just some simple questions. “Who are the four main characters on Sex and the City?” “What’s the state bird of Alabama?” I know. Boring. And easy. So when I got a more difficult and tricky question from a certain CTO, I furiously thumb-typed it into my RAZR.

Me: What’s the largest
undiscovered prime
number?

Ha. That will get them, I thought.

A few minutes later, just when I thought I was so clever, I received a response.

Chacha: It is impossible
to answer what is yet to
be discovered however
the largest prime number
is 9,808,358 digits long.

I guess they showed me. But maybe that shows you too just how useful ChaCha could be.

Tags: Add new tag, cell phone, cell phone marketing, Chacha, marketing, MMA, mobile, mobile lists, mobile marketing, opt-in, SMS, spam, telemarketing

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 10th, 2008 at 11:39 am and is filed under Miss Mobile. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.