A spokesman for General Soft Drinks Limited, the local importers of Coca-Cola has told The Malta Independent online that the company has launched an investigation following several cases in which people were informed through an SMS, that they won a considerable sum of money.
The company said that this is a scam, and is urging all those who have replied to these emails to file a police report immediately, and cut off all forms of communication.
This morning several people contacted this portal after receiving a message on their mobile, sometimes in the middle of the night, claiming they had won up to £500,000. These messages whose number starts with the South African international country code (+27) include a reference number and an email, through which people are being urged to contact ‘the claims agent’.
While for the majority this is obviously a scam, there are still cases of people taking these SMSs seriously or else replying to them out of curiosity and thus putting themselves unnecessarily at risk by giving personal details such as credit card or bank account numbers.
Contacted by this portal General Softdrinks Limited confirmed that it is aware of this scam campaign.The company spokesman said that the subject lines for these SMS's may vary but are usually one of the following: Hello; The Coca-Cola Award Notification; The Coca-Cola Promo Winning Notification; The Coca-Cola Company Official Prize Notification; or similar titles.
The company warned that SMSs include formal language that makes them look ‘official’ and are sometimes designed to look legitimate by including a ‘secret pin code’ or reference/ticket number and contact information for a Coca-Cola representative.
He stressed that Coca-Cola is in no way associated with these SMS's, and that its name and trademarks are being used without authorization. The public can file a complaint either by sending an email to [email protected] or contacting the Police directly.
This kind of scam has also been reported in other countries including the United Kingdom and the United States. In each case the mother company issued guidelines to safeguard its reputation as well as alert the public to be on the lookout.
According to these guidelines people may also be targeted through an email which usually includes a claim number or even a false cheque that appears to be from Coke or another Coca-Cola bottler.
Other characteristics to lookout for are spelling and grammatical errors, improper use of company trademarks, sender's use of free, non-corporate email accounts like Yahoo and Gmail, and requests for personal information and the promise of quick financial gain.