I’ve been getting a fair number of SMS spams recently trying to persuade me to sign up for a lottery number scam. They come from shortcode 87770, and look like this:

FreeMsg: get 5 FREE lines in the nxt Euromillions £41M Jckpt Txt TRY to 87770 Lines will be txt 2 ur mobile LottobyText 0208708109768

Despite texting back ‘STOP’ to the number, they keep on coming. I’ve also tried using their online form and the email address supplied on the LottobyText website, but that hasn’t helped either.

So I did a little Googling, and found that they’re coming from a company by the name of Marketing Craze Ltd. That reveals the names of the directors, so I thought I’d try getting in touch directly. Here’s what I just sent:

To: [email protected]
Subject: Unsolicited SMS from LottobyText

Hi Mark,

One of your companies, LottobyText, keeps on sending me unsolicited text
messages. I’m sure you’re aware that that’s illegal. Please can you make
sure that in future, you only send marketing texts to people who have
explicitly signed up for your services.

Every time I get a message from one of your companies, I’ll send you
another email to remind you as well as reporting it to the ICO.

Regards

Mark Goodge

I’ll post any updates here if/when Mr Lewis ever replies to me. If he doesn’t reply, I’ll try emailing his fellow directors instead.

Incidentally, Marketing Craze have form as email spammers as well. Here’s an interesting link at a web forum.