I have been advising people I know to block, then delete and report junk (iOS) to unwanted texts. Others have argued with me that you should reply STOP. I disagree, especially after checking a shortened link in a “campaign” text and finding the link was a phishing attempt. What do you think?
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However, if they're using some other carrier or rolling their own VOIP setup, etc., or sending from a toll-free number instead of a shortcode, there's no guarantee that their particular platform will honor STOP. And there's no way for you, as a recipient, to know which is which.
Generally I will reply STOP if it's something I know I signed up for but no longer want. Things I never signed up for just get reported as spam and I don't reply.
The STOP keyword is mandated as unsubscribe at the carrier level (Verizon, ATT, TMo) not just the vendor level. So if you reply STOP, it's very likely that you will not receive another message from that number.
This will be true for any programmatic SMS vendor. There could be smaller scale & more manual approaches, but that would be rare.
There has been a big effort in the last year+ to clean up the space and require consent before any SMS is sent.
FWIW, somewhat surprisingly, my google pixel has an amazing spam filter for SMS and I rarely get SMS that I don't want.
What I want to know is, what's the purpose of those random texts that just say something like, "How's it been?" from a number that I've never communicated with? What's the angle there? Anyone know?
My understanding is that they will pretend it's a wrong number, but then make a joke or talk about some innocuous hobby and try to build up trust over weeks/months to eventually phish or scam you. I forget where I read it (maybe reddit?) but there was a poster who mentioned a personal experience with one such scam, basically a fake romance scam that led to them losing tens of thousands of dollars wiring money to a fake person who pretended to have fallen in love with them over weeks of back and forth texting.
It doesn't have to work on everyone to be profitable, just the once-in-a-while lonely pensioner!
https://consumer.ftc.gov/consumer-alerts/2024/05/why-its-not...
https://www.robokiller.com/blog/how-to-identify-text-scams
I inadvertently replied to one of those spam messages because the number coincidentally matched the location a relative had recently moved to (I figured it was them trying to joke around while informing me of their new number, it was something along the lines of "Can you guess who I am?"). They replied with a picture of a girl and some question trying to start a conversation. So, I figure they're just fishing for easily tricked or lonely people to manipulate into sending them money.
FWIW I didn't notice much of an uptick in scam texts/calls after that.
Unless it is political
>I'm Alyssa. are you the equestrian instructor that Tina referred me to?
>I'm very sorry, I just checked the number and it was my assistant who sent the wrong number, I hope I'm not disturbing you.
>Thank you for understanding, you are a friendly person, I have found the right number, your number and the riding instructor's number are only one number away, haha, it was a wrong encounter, but it was a kind of fate. Let me introduce myself, my name is Alyssa Chow what is your name?
Also got it from a "Lillian." I do hope they and her assistants find Tina's equestrian instructor.
Also on a side note, the scams are really horrific. Although obviously scams I can imagine especially the older people getting tricked with "hello grandad here's my new number". Makes me wonder what I'll be getting tricked with when I am old.
wonder if STOP will work for only the same number, or globally.
I also know political messages have lots of loopholes, thanks to the politicians who create the laws.
It's well worth the watch, but tl;dr: it's a long-con scam. They invest as long as it takes to establish a relationship with you, and then engage you to do something (crypto mostly, apparently) involving cash online. They will say they made a bunch of money, and point you at the super-easy online exchange they used. You buy the crypto, you see the crypto increase in value (because it has in the real world) so you buy more, and more and more.
The problems start when you say you want to cash out. They switch from "buy more, it's going up" to "there are fees to withdraw, just deposit another <whatever> and then you'll get the withdrawal amount plus <whatever>" and of course no money ever comes out.
Oliver interviews people who have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars this way, some of whom still believe that if they just toss in another <whatever> it will all be resolved and they'll get their money back. It's very sad, and I'm not doing the video justice.
I still get notifications for these on my Pixel. I just don't want them.
Some people are seriously lonely - eager to pick up any chance of real interaction. And those scams prey on that.
On telegram those spam usually comes together with a profile picture of a pretty women. With text only, it targets the imagination.
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Is that just for programmatic messages, or all messages?
I could see problems if it was all messages. For instance suppose a relative coming to visit for weekend and due to arrive around 5 pm Friday. You get a text from them that afternoon saying that there was an accident that has blocked traffic and police say it will be several hours before the road reopens.
They ask if you would prefer that they continue as soon as the road reopens, which will probably mean they will arrive around 1 am Saturday, or stop and spend the night with another relative who lives near where they are currently stuck, and then come Saturday morning which will get them to your place around 9 am.
You text back "stop" to indicate the latter option, and now texts from that relative are blocked. Oops.
I only recommend responding STOP to short codes since there's more investment and vetting on getting a short code. Carriers will intercept the request for TFN/local numbers sometimes but I don't really trust it. These numbers are all going to be spammers buying pools of numbers to churn and burn. They'll just import their list into a new account if it unsubs.
Oh and btw, it's actually easier now as a spammer to tell when numbers get burned. A few years back when the CTIA handover on regs happened (and sending costs went up) the carriers finally started to respond with the delivery status of the sent messages. Before this they didn't respond and you only knew your provider delivered the messages to the carrier, not whether the carrier delivered them to the handset.
I report their spam to twilio, but twilio claima they cant do anything about spam from their sub
There is a tiny bit of vetting involved and you've got to be a slightly larger account, but it is possible, so it's not safe to assume that if the message is coming from Twilio that STOP will block them at the platform level.
Also, the provider relayed the STOP to the last of their client that reached the number, they had no way to trace it back with 100% confidence.
After over a month of troubleshooting, it turns out that I had sent "STOP" to that number years ago on a different device (no longer visible in chat history) and now had to send "UNSTOP" in order to receive the phone verification SMS required to sign up for the service. It was a shared number between multiple apps.
Phone numbers are exchanged a lot and repurposed. Most providers/carriers will likely have a do-not-use-for-x-amount-of-time bin to put newly reclaimed numbers in, but after a while, it will always be re-used. hence this kind of issue can happen.
In my country there's a place to register to disallow unsolicited marketing and other types of messaging. That's not by number you 'STOP' and hence it won't have such effects. A marketeer/sales company is simply not allowed by law to dial your number for sales/marketing, so they have auto-lookups to that registry to prevent breaching the law. translated, it's the 'do-not-call-me-registry' :D aptly named.
it won't stop phishing messages etc., but not much will. if you'd block it from 1 number, they will just use the next number..
Even more annoyingly, politicians wrote in an exception for themselves. In combination with the way campaign finance works in the US, this means that if you've ever give your number to any political campaign, it will be passed around forever and you'll have multiple politicians begging you for money for months leading up to every election. Each individual campaign/organization seems to respect 'STOP,' but once your number is on an e.g. 'Has ever donated to a Democratic candidate' list, there's seemingly no way to get it off for good. Thanks, Obama. (I gave him $50 in 2008.)
Since (it sounds like) this is talking about blocking and unblocking the flow of messages from that number, using "UNSTOP" (remove the thing blocking it) makes more sense than "START"; particularly as the latter seems to imply that you're asking to immediately begin receiving messages, whereas the former simply means to no longer block the messages.
Thankfully, Gmail catches 99% of the spam emails and my Pixel phone filters out spam texts and calls. It has a built-in Google Assistant mode that screens unknown callers with a robot voice picking up and asking them to describe what they're calling about. Most of the callers just hang up as soon as they hear that, and if they don't and actually say they're calling about so-and-so candidate, I just click the block button.
I tried to switch to iPhone for a few weeks (for iMessage), but the spam problem was SO bad (even with Robocaller and some SMS spam filtering app) that I switched back to Android. Google's spam blocking is phenomenal on the Pixel, but they barely even advertise it. It's an afterthought for them, but a lifesaver for me. My phone would be completely unusable without it.
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In the back of my mind, I keep thinking it'd be cool to have an app that automatically looks up whoever the candidate is running against and automatically donating 10 cents (or however much) to their opponent every time they spam you. "Hi, it sounds like you're running in District _____ against ______. Because of this spam, I've donated 10 cents to your opponent. So far, this app has donated $1,234 to your opponent because of your messages. Goodbye!"
Our government is so corrupt and broken they're never going to fix any of this, so it's up to the technologists and market incentives instead...
It takes advantage of a difference from regular spam where there's nothing the spammer would dislike you to do.
The problem is that once they identify you as voting against spammers it encourages them to false flag spam you from a PAC that looks like it supports their opposition.
It's a feature that's good enough to warrant me replacing the otherwise superior Xiaomi dialer/SMS apps on my phone with the Google ones. I don't get the screen calling, but all the other parts work 80% of the time.
I gave a few small donations and foolishly didn’t use a disposable email address. That was over four years ago and I’m still getting over a dozen spam emails a day from candidates I have never even heard of.
Maybe there is some central actblue list I can opt out of but I don’t even think I created an account with them
Never donated a penny since
If I don't reply "stop" to anything, it seems like one day "Retired Democrats PAC" will suddenly stop sending me messages and "Save Democracy PAC" will suddenly begin, and that pattern is what makes me think a single group is behind a lot of it.
If I do reply "stop" to one, of course they will stop from that PAC, but a few days later another one will always pop up and pick right back up.
Every few days I send out a mass "stop" to all of the numbers I've gotten messaged by, and it usually gives me 3-4 days of peace.
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In the 2020 election cycle it seemed some of the texts had people behind them, so I’d reply and told them if they kept texting me I’d vote for the opponent out of pure spite. That was actually quite effective, but did have to say it to a half dozen people.
This time around, I keep getting texts asking for $40. Most I report as spam, others I say stop. But it seems these lists are distributed out far and wide, so removing the name from one, or 10, doesn’t do much.
Like you, I will never again donate to a politician and will encourage everyone else to save their money. No one should pay money to be harassed. I’m not sure how they think this is a good idea or will win people over.
I tried sending Goatse back to them, but whatever text spamming software they're instructed to use doesn't support receiving images, unfortunately :)
So thanks for validating my decision :)
I wish we had something similar for phone numbers
Super-throwaway email addresses in the terminal
Is it an optional field? If not one could practically enter any digits or can one get punished for that?
The credit card input screen was just there to make you feel comfortable consenting to endless SMS texts for life.
As far as I know, physically mailing a check is the best way to avoid sharing information as you only need to provide your name, address, and employer. This information is the only federally required information.
They sold it to a liberal political group, who then sold it to an extreme liberal group.
I get dozens, sometimes hundreds, of spam emails, every day, with the most batshit insane messages. It’s especially bad, now, with the US election coming up. The one saving grace, is that it wasn’t a right-wing group. They make the ultra-liberals look like a bunch of teetotalers.
Since she used the iCloud.com variant of the address, I simply nuke all emails that specify that, as a destination. Apple won’t let me block the domain, so I have to apply the rules, after they fill my inbox.
Sometime in there, one of the spammers figured out that icloud.com will also receive iMessage texts, so they have started coming to that, as well (so far, it is from legit political groups. I don’t expect that to last). I delete and report as junk. I very rarely respond with STOP.
- stalkers and trolls live off reactions, both positive and negative ones
- spammers will use your reply to verify there's a human at the other side
- colleagues and friends will hate you because everybody thinks they're important
Replying only has negative effects. Use client-side filtering, kill files, blocking functions, or ignore the text - whichever fits best.
For real spam, sure, but for semi-legitimate spam like real businesses and political fundraising, I'm not sure this is actually true. I have found replying with STOP did reduce the volume of political spam I was getting. I think it makes intuitive sense that they should try to respect opt-out signals: you don't want to piss off the people you're trying to appeal to. It hasn't entirely eliminated them, but it seems to have been more effective than Junking them.
Could just be coincidence, of course. Who knows.
I don’t distinguish anymore. There is no such thing as a legitimate spammer. If you contact me without my consent, you are at best a nuisance and at worst a threat. You get marked as spam if E-mail, and blocked+trashed otherwise. I really wish SMS and iMessage had a way to mark senders as spammers.
> NETWORK MSG: You replied with the word "stop" which blocks all texts sent from this number. Text back "unstop" or "start" to receive messages again.
I assumed it was from my carrier (T-Mobile in the US), but now I'm wondering, as I have gotten different replies from other numbers. Maybe it came from the sender's provider? Or is just misleading.
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It’s the same with texts. They could filter these in a more useful way. Also, IMO, I shouldn’t see a counter bubble if I filtered out/missed a call that went to voicemail. I’m an inbox zero type and having bubbles means there’s something that needs attention. Spam doesn’t need attention.
I found out which provider was sending the SMS and contact their abuse line (I would reply STOP but they would just send from a different phone number) and got the name of the customer who was sending the messages. I then contacted that company and got them to blacklist my number (they were a company for sending political sms only, I have no worries about needing to get an sms they would send).
I now get 1-2 political spam messages a month, if that, and I’ve been too lazy to hunt down the source of the few remaining spammers. It went from 2-3 a day to 1-2 a month, huge relief.
I’m not saying that’s your problem, but it’s worth checking.
To look up the origin use a website like https://www.freecarrierlookup.com/
Then you can go to that platform’s page for reporting abuse or spam (find via search) and fill out their form. Sometimes those platforms will say they can’t do anything since it is a different platform that isn’t a direct customer but yet another platform, so ask them to name them. You may then need to find that other platform’s reporting page.
Just be aware that after all of this, you may not actually fix your problem. Some of these companies seem to repeatedly send spam because they have customers that just perform the same abuse from a different phone number or different account with that platform. That’s why the reports to the FCC and FTC matter, to investigate platforms for broader issues.
It's really bad, and to this point is just something "everyone does". So it just immediately gets deleted and reported as junk and I move on. The bigger question for me is how effective this type of marketing actually is because I can't imagine it is.
If you ever get a suspicious/spam text, looking up the carrier is a good first step. Most of the garbage I get comes from VoIP numbers because they can easily spin up disposable numbers from places like Telnyx or Bandwidth.com. That's not to say someone can't be using an actual mobile phone, but usually it's coming from some VoIP system.
It uses iOS’s SMS Filtering framework, which does the filtering in a privacy-preserving way: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/sms_and_call_repor...
"The developer of 'Bouncer' will receive the text, attachments, and sender information in SMS and MMS messages from senders not in your Contacts. Messages may include personal or sensitive information like bank verification codes."
This doesn't scream "privacy preserving".
Thanks for the documentation link, I was uneasy about using this type of extension.
I suppose they could bundle a more advanced rules-based system, but since there's an API for user apps to do it, why not leave the job up to them?
Here’s a local keyword filtering app that works great: https://github.com/afterxleep/Bouncer