collected Aug 2012

This message which is circualting virally on Facebook claims that everyones SIM Card has a name, and entering the last 3 digits of your phone number, accompanied with some other symbols into a Facebook comment box will reveal that name.

Whilst the instructions do actually produce a seemingly random name appear in place of the inputted symbols and numbers, it is of course nothing to do with your SIM card. This would be illogical since many different phone numbers end in the same 3 digits and hence would produce the same name when inputted into a Facebook comment box. Additionally Facebook have no relationship with SIM card providers so there would be no obvious reason why this would work anyway.

What is actually occurring is some "shorthand" Facebook code. Every Facebook user and page are assigned a unique ID number. When that ID number is typed into a comment box along with the symbols described in the message it displays the name of that corresponding Facebook user/page. For example, typing in @[444:0] reveals the name of Facebook user with the ID number 444. The ID number, obviously, is not limited to 3 digits. For example typing in @[107149055980624:0] will bring up our page, since our pages unique ID is 107149055980624.

Facebook users with an ID number with only 3 digits would be some of the first to sign up for Facebook - most users we bought up were from Harvard, where Facebook was first available. You can verify this by typing in www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=[idnumber] into the address bar, replacing idnumber with any number, e.g. 444 - this will bring up the profile of the user with the corresponding ID number.


The Internet, and social networking sites like Facebook, are perfect platforms for spreading untruths, misinformation, rumor and propaganda. Thousands of inaccurate, exaggerated, deceptive or just plain false messages are circulated every single day.

For the anti-scam community to successfully tackle this plethora of false rumours, it is important that anyone who uses the Internet be able to identify false rumours and fully understands the possible consequences of spreading false information.

We have a two part blog post that helps provide this information. Part 1 deals with how to spot and debunk Internet rumours and Part 2 deals with the reasons why you should never circulate false information.

Additionally if you have fallen for this rumour or have Facebook friends that have, you can join our growing Facebook page here.