Recently, with the evident of lottery and prize schemes by cellular companies, the lottery scams / prize scams hit their best ranks in the history. There are countless types of fraud/scams that keep on surfacing in our surroundings every other day.

Fraudsters, initially, underwent a problem in establishing such illicit networks in Pakistan due to a fact that usage of credit cards was very limited here. Branchless banking and balance sharing (for mobile accounts), however, solved the problem and the illegal business of “prize scams” started gaining heights.

Here are few types of “Prize Schemes” scams used to trap innocents:

• Benazir Income Support Prize
• Car Prize from cellular companies
• Car Prize from a multi national company
• Cash prize from a firm in Middle East
• Job Scams

And many more, for instance, check following SMS that was shared with ProPakistani just today:

SUBCOM ENGINEERING Company Ko Jaga Darkar Hai Plot Ya Chat par mobile tower lagany k liye.
Aplication ki last date 10 Aug
Cal:03454681665
Tahirraza797@yahoo.com

Other types of communication can be as following:

You have won a car prize from XYZ company. you are required to contact this and this number to claim your prize.

When someone contacts these scammers, they ask for cash money to be transferred through Easypaisa/UBL Omni or they ask for Mobile cards valuing Rs. 500, Rs. 1,000 or even more.

Innocent souls transfer the funds/balance and expect hefty prizes, which never come.

A lot has been written by the media, blogs and other communication channels to educate general public of these scammers. But naturally there was lot more to be done by someone to completely eliminate the problem. We had recommended government, PTA in this case, to start massive awareness campaign to educate our countrymen of these fraudsters.

But Ufone has taken up the responsibility and came up with an awareness TVC which educates people of these lottery fraudsters. TVC, which is wonderful in terms of what it communicates, has superclass execution.

Interestingly, the ad is produced and developed by the same Ufone team that is best known for humor and hilarious ads, showing that they can perform masterpiece in talky and serious ads too.

This first of its series TVC can serve as an inspiration for other cellular companies who should initiate such awareness campaigns as well. After all, if they can copy Ufone’s Shahcar offer than what’s bad in copying something which is positive and can be helpful and productive for consumers.

Here is TVC, check yourself and share your feedback!