iMessage SPAM floods US mobile networks

China-based counterfeiters are spamvertising knock-off designer goods using Apple iMessage instead of using conventional email spam runs. iMessage has been hit with the single largest US mobile spam campaign this year. The campaign, which has been going on for months, was large enough to account for more than 80 per cent of …

[Semtex451]

Tut another one El Reg can't pin on the Fruity firm

BTW "shipped from somewhere within roughly three hours" impressive turnaround what?

[ElReg!comments!Pierre]

Toy, or "high-quality designer bag"?

Frankly, for most of the genuine (and expensive) designer bags i've seen, same/diff

[Binnacle]

ancient news

Got hit with this back in July and reported the spam via Apple's email reporting channel. Hopefully Apple has mitigated iMessage spam for the future (rarely do they acknowledge taking such actions) as the service is otherwise excellent.

[Kevin McMurtrie]

Keeping up with Google

China has been using Google Groups to flood Usenet this spam for about 10 years now, and Google is fine with that. Luckily, Apple's walled garden should keep this new spew within their own walls.

[Martin-73]

Re: Keeping up with Google

SHould be possible to just killfile anything posted from Gargle Gropes, no?

[Anonymous Coward]

"A bit of investigation into the spammer’s methods revealed that, contrary to many scams that look to steal credit card information, actual merchandise was delivered."

Apparently the Chinese are rubbish scammers; one can only hope the prospective Sino-Russian Cybersecurity pact will allow the RBN to export some of their know-how to their Chinese brethren.

[tfewster]

Doesn't seem to be a scam then...

...if you get value for money. A fake product for the price of a...fake product. No CC ripoff,

So what's the problem?

Oh, Apple are enabling/colluding with the counterfeiters (and probably raking off a % of data fees)? Yep, that's newsworthy.

[Anonymous (Noel) Coward]

Re: Doesn't seem to be a scam then...

I bought a fake Rolex from China last week and it's a perfect copy - 100% indistinguishable from a genuine fake Rolex.

[DiViDeD]

Will never work

I mean, be realistic. This is modern, hip iThing users we're talking about, and iThing users are discerning people. It's not like they'd be willing to pay over the odds for a shoddy piece of kit just because it has the right logo on it.

Oh, hang on .