Nokia Selling Personal Phone #? Location App?

[andrelamont]

So...I have the same phone number for 7 years now, and I only give this number out to friends/family and use my google voice for banks, jobs, utility companies and etc.


So I get the GDR2/AMBER update from ATT (last week), got the 'blocked SMS setting'/app enabled( just curious if it would work and tested it with my daughter)

A few days later I get a I get a text from 85760 saying

"Patterson Apple Day Reminder
See you tomorrow, rain or shine....Look for Dr. Laura's purple balloons as you enter off Mulberry"​

So I ignore it thinking someone has typed the wrong #, but then i get hit with the same message 5X more times...strange as I don't get spammed at all.

I then google (sorry Bing'ed ) and find out that there is a Pattern's Fruit Farm in my area and off of Mulberry Road! Hmm...


Dismiss this as a one time thing and move on


Well today, I get another another spam text from 347-575-6**3 saying

"Congrats! Your Mobile Number has one 5,000 GBP in the NOKIA UK MOBILE PROMO.
For Claims:+447937667620 & email n.promo [at] cash4u [dot] com"​

Huh...what?
How did the spammer know that I had a Nokia phone? Coincidental? Some Location based app selling stuff (thinking how did some machine know what general area I lived in and didn't send me an reminder about Foo being sold in Texas this weekend


edited:
I guess another theory could be one of my family/friends could have had their phone's contact list exposed and sold....but how would they know what area I lived in and that I had a Nokia phone?

 

[hopmedic]

Or random phone number, and location "guess" based on area code?

 

[andrelamont]

Or random phone number, and location "guess" based on area code?

didn't think of that (doh)

doesn't explain the Nokia Contest spam?

EDITED:
And on cue I just got a call from 503.305.5**3 sigh...

I don't have a lot of apps, but the one's I do have are going in the trash...should have been curious when that battery App required location services to work

 

[teckris]

Huh...what?
How did the spammer know that I had a Nokia phone? Coincidental? Some Location based app selling stuff (thinking how did some machine know what general area I lived in and didn't send me an reminder about Foo being sold in Texas this weekend

it is clearly random Guess.. In my place people get such messages frequently [even my BSNL mobile got VODAFONE price ]. the problem is with apps like TrueCaller, free SMS apps and all. they take the contact information

 

[hopmedic]

A random number generator discovered that it is a number associated with a cell phone and put it on a list. That's my guess.