Well, that might be a little extreme. You might not save your life, but you could save yourself from a huge scam.
If there is one thing an adult can’t stand, its snail mail arriving at your home that you didn’t ask for. Publisher’s Clearing House, some local sale, whatever can fill your mailbox, it seems the delivery person shoves it into your life.
Now it’s happening with your cell phones. Have you noticed you’re starting to get text messages from places or businesses you’ve never heard of before? If you haven’t, it’s coming.
From ABC News:
You hear the text message alert ping, scramble to find your phone, only to find that the message is from an unknown number and the message is asking you to click on a link or text back.
It’s text spam, and according to data released today by the Pew Research Center, 69 percent of those who text say they get unwanted spam or text messages. Additionally, 25 percent of those admit to getting spam texts once a week.
“They [customers] say text spam is more invasive to them than junk mail or even spam emails. And sometimes, the recipients even have to pay for the texts that they never wanted in the first place,” Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Research Center, told ABC News.
Pew’s recent data also detailed other phone annoyances (72 percent of cell owners experience drop calls and 68 percent get marketing calls on their cells), but CloudMark, a company that helps in the reporting of mobile spam, has also seen a rise in the messages. In April and July of 2012 SMS spam peaked significantly, says the company.
“Mobile is becoming the new attack tool for criminals looking for a quick profit,” Mary Landesman, senior security researcher at Cloudmark, told ABC News.
Landesman explained that criminals can profit from mobile spam in a few ways: they can attempt to get people to divulge personal information through text or they can manipulate people into sending premium rate SMS messages, which can cost much more than a regular text.
It seems these hackers have probably stolen your cell phone number off some list that has been passed around, and you never know when it’s going to stop. You should never return a message to the originator, that would be like you opening your door and allowing Dracula to walk in.
You can forward your message to this number: 7726. They will investigate it for you. Remember, do not respond to the unwarranted message or you will never hear the end of it.
Have you been receiving these messages? If you have, did you respond with a STOP and they kept coming? Share your story below and let us know what you did to stop it. Add this to your Facebook/Twitter page.
