Received a SMS from a friend first thing today morning - “plz forward this phone no. to all your friends. Very urgent.. A baby needs A -ve blood immediately. Contact 9944506707. pls do not delete, atleast fwd.”
Having received such sms in the past & being reasonably expert on them, asked him to verify the authenticity of the sender, nos & revert…..
No response till late afternoon, when I received a sheepish reply ‘pls ignore’
This was repeated twice during the course of the day; Mind you they were from different locations, friends who do not know each other.
This sets one thinking - Is this a marketing gimmick? Do people have so much free time to play around with someone’s lives if it is genuine enough???
WHATEVER the case may be, at the cost of being rude, I have made it a rule to always ask for verification/confirmation of authenticity before even thinking of forwarding such sms….
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I guess we people have a lot of time..for such useless humour.
December 20th, 2009 at 8:45 amA friend who once worked in a service provider company said…they start such sms fwds…to make money!!!
January 28th, 2010 at 4:42 amLet me say I have been actively forwarding “Need Blood” messages, be it on SMS or twitter. While the intent of a hoax message is still not clear to me, It does ask for a rethink. On one hand there is a possibility of being able to help someone in emergency. On the other is the posiibility of being party to a scam of sorts. If I have to choose between the two, i feel I would still go for the former, but thanks to your post, might go for checking source as well.
January 28th, 2010 at 4:53 amI am at no point saying that do not forward, however checking it once can save a lot of people heartburn. I treat this similar to email forwards that say if you do not forward bad luck will fall upon you.
January 28th, 2010 at 4:58 amhmm mails of gods wreaking havoc if u do not forward go straight to the dustbin or else i send them back to the sender b4 deleting!
January 28th, 2010 at 6:06 amAm inclined to agree with gambhir that if the message can save a life id rather forward then think but anaggh is also right we shouldnot let scamsters use us!
so next time i shall indeed try n verify else i shall ask for number of the hospital