Both Android phones and iPhones have spam-filtering features that you can enable. While your actions are the primary protection mechanism, your phone can also help. That means ignore unsubscribe offers, never follow a link from a text and do not respond in any way. Like with spam texts, do not engage with suspicious texts. A scammer’s purpose, whether that’s text, call or email, is to gain access to your device to steal sensitive information via malware like a credit card stored on your phone or steal it by convincing you to hand over credit card details and the like. Scam texts may look like spam, but the intent is harmful. When you see a spam email on your phone, swipe to delete it.
So the first rule of dealing with spam is to never engage. And, if you do, clicking “unsubscribe” signals to the spammer that your number is a good one and you will continue to receive the unwanted texts. In fact, you may not ever see the opportunity to do so. Spammers will not make it easy to unsubscribe.
Thereafter, you may have to visit the website and contact customer service if you want to be taken off their list. If you no longer want to receive offers or updates from a company, it should be easy to unsubscribe to them and most legitimate merchants will include an unsubscribe mechanism in at least the first text. Like with email, if you subscribed to receive text messages, say in exchange for a merchant discount, that’s not really spam. Spam refers to messages that are usually unwanted sales pitches that you did not subscribe to receive. It’s important to understand the difference between spam and scam. In other words, the “return on investment” for texts is higher than the ROI for calls. These texts are less time-consuming to produce, reach targets more reliably and faster than calls and are easier to send for spammers and scammers. According to the makers of the app RoboKiller, spam text messages reached 7.4 billion, nearly 1 billion more than spam calls in the same month. Further, the pandemic may also have contributed to this annoyance as texting became a commonplace form of communication between remote workers. Spam and scam texts are increasing in volume, which parallels the rise in texting and the improvement of email programs to identify and block spam. Just last week, he sent his first video in a text to me that showed a family of deer in the field behind his pool. A few months ago, he started using animated gifs to express his pleasure with a project we were working on together and upcoming visit plans - a cartoon dog with a jaunty hat is his favorite. Even my 83-year-old dad texts me and has gotten pretty good at it. Texting has become the communication method of choice for many smartphone users.