Spam texts
 

It started about a month ago on my cell phone. Spam texts for crap. I block them but they change their number and continue. Now I'm up to four unwanted junk spam texts a day. It's maddening! Any suggestions?

You can block all calls and texts from everyone except those stored in your contacts.

I know that, but doing so you may miss a call or text that was legitimate.

Keep blocking they will run out of numbers eventually.

My wife gets phone calls from a company selling medical insurance about 5x a day and she blocks them. Unfortunately do not call means nothing

You can try installing a robo call blocker app. There are a lot of them to choose from.

Stop visiting porn sites? <duck>

Seriously though - people who get lots of these (multiple ones every day) are people who have provided their cell phone number or "texted" to marketing companies or product companies. Once you do that, your information is sold to list companies, that in turn sell those lists to other marketing companies.

The only way to prevent it is to use your cell phone ONLY to make phone calls to people you know personally, and never click on ANY link that ANY of those people ever send you.

I have one but it works on calls, not texts.

Unfortunately, no they won't.

They cannot have an unlimited number of numbers to call from.

The Truecaller app is supposed to block spam calls and messages, is free, and gets good ratings. So is Robokiller, but I think there is a charge for that one. I don't use any of them because I'm happy to get calls from almost anyone. Good luck.

If you want to have some fun see how long you can keep the crooks on the phone asking silly questions. I walk around the house while doing this and can get quite a few of my daily steps in this way

I recently upgraded my phone thru AT&T. If a caller is not in my contacts I do receive indication of missed call and # but no ring. Also notifies me if it’s Spam,telemarketers or politely but still doesn’t ring thru only receive text from contacts

I had someone call last week and just say the word "bankrupt" (????) and hang up. I also got another call from someone who addressed me as "grandma". No one calls me that.

I have always wondered why some people want to reach out in a negative way to others and why some people vandalize others. I don't understand this need to hurt people they don't know.

It's the greatest country. Believe that.

Correct.
 

You are correct. But, you can let calls go to voicemail and texts go to mailbox, check it out, then call back if it is legit.
In the days when we only had "land line" phones, you had to run to get the phone when it rang or you would miss the call. Now, with cell phones always with us, we need to stop reflexively answering the phone every time it makes a noise. If you let the call go, you can call back a caller you know instantly. Those you don't know, you have time to check it out. What if you were driving or in the shower? You would (or should) let the call go until you can safely get to it. Save yourself a lot of angst and let calls go, your friends will understand, and businesses and doctors offices will still be there when you call back.

Download Robotkiller. It works

Careful doing this.
 

I used to love messing with unsolicited calls in the old days. Nowadays, it can be dangerous. Many scams just want you to pick up so they know they have a good number. Others would love you to talk your head off while they record your voice so they can piece together a call that has your actual voice for the purpose of identity theft or some other nefarious scheme.
So, be careful trying to mess with scamerers, it could bite you in the butt.

Wrong! The CallerID information can be faked. You can be presented new fake CallerID information with each call. There are billions of telephone and name combinations. A computer can program a new fake CallerID number and/or name with each junk call or junk text. Blocking each number is like “Wack a Mole”. You will never win that game.

I don’t know if the iPhone feature “Silence Unknown Callers” can stop the junk texts. Try “Settings”, “Phone”, turn on “Silence Unknown Callers”. If that doesn’t work, post your results.

If that method to filter out junk texts doesn’t work, hopefully, Apple could add that as a new feature. No one wants to receive junk texts. That feature does work to stop junk telephone calls.

I just found a possible solution to your junk texts. On the “iPhone”, “Settings”, “Messages”, turn on “Filter Unknown Senders”. That looks like it should stop the junk text messages.

If you have an “Android” cellphone, replace it with an IPhone.

We could stop this in a year if we all agreed to only vote for a presidential candidate who promised to stop spam calls and emails. Pass a law making a $1000 fine per instance of spam calls and emails, and let bounty hunters catch the spammers. $500 to the bounty hunter and $500 to the US treasury. This would make a lot of new millionaires and zero out the budget deficit in one fell swoop.

The problem with that is the junk callers are coming from overseas, outside of the reach of the US laws.

But there are ways you can stop those junk callers from annoying you, if you choose to do that. Or, you can keep putting up with the junk callers! Every month and every year, there will be more and more junk callers. Those companies only need to make money on a very tiny fraction of the people who fall for the advertising or scam.

Filtering out the junk callers is dirt cheap, if it saves you thousands or hundreds of thousands to prevent a scam that could have cost you or a vulnerable person that you know.

I got a call from some guy with a terrible accent telling me my computer was infected and that he could repair it. I started calling him every four letter word I know and questioned his parentage, sexual preferences, honesty and intelligence. When I hung up he was spitting and sputtering, couldn't get out an intelligible word.

Spam calls and texts drive us all crazy. I have found that blocking a number is ineffective and, in fact, it establishes you as a legitimate number and increases the number of spam calls/texts. I learned long ago not to answer any number I do not recognize on caller ID. If it’s important they will leave a message. On your cell phone you can silence unknown callers and I get a pop up that states “potentially spam” to numbers recognized by my carrier as such. I have a landline with a phone made by AT&T. I have put all of my important numbers in its directory. Should my phone ring with a robo call it doesn’t ring. Callers that are not programmed into my phone will receive a recording saying you have reached a phone with smart block, state your name. Callers have the option to do so, I hear their name from the phone’s speaker. I am instructed to press 1 if I wish to take the call. It works like a charm. It has cut back my nuisance calls by 95%. It was worth the cost of the phone which was around $95 with 4 handsets. With elections approaching and calls increasing I am so happy to have this phone.

I'm waiting for my 19th call informing me that this is my final opportunity to extend the warranty on a car that I no longer own before my option to do so ends...I love jerking the chain of the heavy accented guy that wants to fix my computer remotely, I tell him to hold on for a couple of seconds and just leave him hanging on the line for awhile

I usually answer the cell calls, as not all of my doctor's phone lines are in my contact list

I too have just started to receive 'spam' texts....I just delete them

There was a new law passed at the end of 2019 to address robocalls. It toughened the penalty but more importantly required the phone companies to install anti-spoofing software in their system. This should detect when callers are not showing the actual phone number they are using. The roll out of this improvement is ongoing now.

The law also directs the FCC to " to create rules that will help protect subscribers from receiving unwanted texts or robotexts, which are also plaguing smartphone users."

The present head of the FCC is Ajit Pai who spent some of his career at a lawyer for Verizon and is viewed as a friend of the telecom industry and a foe of regulation of that industry. It will be interesting to see what new regulations the FCC suggests.

At least Congress has shown some interest in helping with your spam text problem.

Limit on the number of phone number available to scammers
 

That is correct. They only have 9,999,999,999.

Well, unless you have 62.5 more years to live, you'll never be able to see them run out of numbers. They have them in the millions.

Just sayin'.:)

You don't beat identity theft by not answering phone calls or texts. You beat identity theft but controlling your credit cards and bank accounts. Two step authorization in all accounts, text on any transaction over an amount (mine is $10), putting a lock on all credit bureaus, and of course different and complex passwords, and don't use debit cards, only credit cards (you can have your ATM bank card restricted to ATM only instead of also a debit card). Then the only way they can try is to steal your purse/wallet, but you will know immediately.

I recently got a call from my wife's phone number ... and she was standing next to me. And I have attempted to stop the scam by calling the number back ... and they are someone whose number was used and they have no idea why. I hate to say we need the government to make it illegal ... because "government as the solution" is an anathema .. but that's the only thing I can think of.

I have found that typing in response to any text messages in CAPS....STOP.... I usually then receive another text message stating UNSUBSCRIBED .....and it has stopped a majority of text messages. The insurance to have my car repairs covered was stopped when I told them I have 300,000 miles on my car. We have to accept that when solution is found another will be discovered to counter it....the world of computers. How did we live without them?? THE GOOD OLD DAYS!!