Being a new owner of a smart phone, I had never heard of text spam. After all, my phone number is on the federal and my state’s no-call lists, so why would I ever think I’d get spam in the form of SMS/text messages?
Well, I do get them, at least one a day. After a couple weeks of this, I started to get aggravated. I knew I didn’t want to just text “stop” in return. That’s like trying to unsubscribe to email spam; all it does is bring on more spam.
Well, it turns out I can have my carrier (who happens to be ATT) do some of the work for me in cutting down on SMS/Text spam. I can forward my spammy texts to 7726 (that spells SPAM). When I do so, I usually get a text back from ATT asking me for the phone number from which the spam came. I text that number back, then get a thank you text from my carrier.
What happens after that is not completely clear, but I think the more people use this service, the more likely it will be that wireless carriers will be able to take action against spammers. Time will tell if I’ll get less spam via text message, but I’m hopeful.
That’s excellent info! Be sure to share that on the next podcast!