The Legitimacy of Mobile Operators Prize Schemes

Whether you belong to any of the cellular networks in Pakistan, you must be familiar with fraud prize schemes coming too often to your mobile these days. This has however increased so rapidly that you may sometimes get disturbed in critical times. Network providers have their own ways to engage customers, some invite them to participate in SMS quiz or some ask them submit their entry to claim your won prize. For those, who are unaware of this frauds dig into the buzz and it turns out to be nothing worth it but waste of time and money in particular. The matter has been increasingly seen on each mobile network in Pakistan with such a speed that it has to be noticed by government and concerned authorities. So what they are really worth it? Is there any legitimacy behind? The answer can be found in this post.

In past few weeks, a mobile network provider started an SMS quiz competition which was said to have prize money of RS. 10 million. But it was something that is actually far from reality – many mobile users suffered. Just for a proof, we contacted with them and came with their remarks such as: “companies are playing with our hard earned money, never given away a single prize, I scored 85195 points for no prize given, wasted thousands of rupees, this is a waste of time and money” and so on and so forth. From mobile users’ experiences, we could surely say that there is no legitimacy of prize schemes of mobile operators in Pakistan. On the other side, it is also pretty much certain that company makes huge money from these frauds.

Everything is obscure since the highest score is unknown to user. You will only know your score only so if you score the highest point the company may say that your score is low than many. And what makes it interesting to know is: to score higher please play the quiz again. More to this, there are no words for the date of lucky draw. For example if you have participated in lucky draw scheme you may not be sure of lucky draw. When we asked one of the mobile users rather suffers, who said that company never told me when the lucky draw will actually held. Instead they keep saying the more entries are the more chances of winning (Jitni Ziada Entries Utny Ziada Jitny K Mowaqy).

If there is something that really exists below the landscape then everything should have been kept transparent. Like the quiz should have been played in real times – users can see the live scores so that one who wins is clearly ranked on top. Or if there is a prize money or lucky draw the date of prize giving must be known. PTA (Pakistan Telecommunication Authority) and government of Pakistan must react on these schemes to inquire the real objectives and if found any unfair action, these schemes should be instantly stopped.