A friend also received some SMS spam described about a month ago. And, driven by a morbid sense of curiosity, he decided to pursue the offer, even though he was exposing his number as legit and thus fair game for spammers and scammers.

So, my friend called up the sender. A young-sounding man politely referred him to a landline number, where an authoritative voice answered. This mystery man claimed he was the CEO of "Philippines Communications Corporation," and opened with a question asking something to the effect of "Why did you call only now? Your claiming period is almost over!" Obviously to create a sense of urgency for the victim. The self-styled CEO asked my friend to call back after 10 minutes.

And when my friend did (remember, this was all an experiment for him), the scammers finally showed their hand. My friend was to deposit Php 10,000.00 into a bank account ASAP. To pay for the insurance of the new car he supposedly won. My friend of course decided to call it quits by then.

This little story shows once again that the best way to save yourself from a scam, especially those that come as spam bombarding your smartphone or PDA, is to trust yourself. If something doesn't make sense or feels wrong to you, always ask for more details. Legit operators are always willing to answer all your questions, while dishonest ones hate questions because they have things to hide. Thanks to my friend for taking one for the team; now we know the reason behind these kind of messages.

But first things first. If you're already sure that the message itself is already scam, delete it immediately. Do not reply like my friend did. Don't try this at home, dear readers.