The nuisance of text spamming
SMS spanning is becoming a true nuisance - fishing scams from unscrupulous money lenders and insurance companies are on the increase. It just happens that your mobile number, harvested through unknown means, is in a huge list of other phone numbers that has been sold to marketing companies for the only purpose of flooding you with text adverts.
Here are some useful tips that may hopefully help you prevent unwanted messages from appearing on your handset.
The first step you need to take is to contact your phone company - some actually have anti-spam measures in place (AT&T do). In addition, you should provide your mobile phone company with details of your spammer(s).
STOP
Spam messages say ‘reply INFO for more info or STOP to opt-out’. Our advice to you is DO NOT reply with ‘STOP’ as this is saying to the spammers that they have a valid phone number and you will be spammed again and again and again …
However, for the good of our members and friends we actually replied to the spam messages with INFO! We did this because we wanted to get the devil by its horns - we wanted to know the names of the companies causing the spamming.
Some of the messages say:
Our records indicate that you have not yet claimed compensation for your accident. You may be entitled to £3750.00 or more. To claim please reply CLAIM or STOP.
IMPORTANT - you could be entitled up to £3,160 in compensation from mis-sold PPI on a credit card or loan. Please reply PPI for info or STOP to opt out.
Need up to £1000 fast. If you get this you can go through our 1min verification and get cash today. Go now to www.smsapprove.com reply STOP DAYS 2stop.
90% of Pensions in the UK are showing no growth. To check how your's is performing, or to release funds, reply PENSION for a free review. Or reply STOP. A Ltd.
Having replied to the messages with INFO, we were promptly called back by skilled marketing staff to whom we conveyed our discontent for being spammed. We then asked for the name of the marketing company that had sold them our phone number. Here are some of the names we were given:
Linkwood Marketing
Conclave marketing
Loan sharks
A loan shark company responsible for spamming is
www.purplepayday.com
We tried to contact this company, but, guess what? No phone numbers were shown on their sites!
So, how do I stop marketing company texting/emailing me unwanted messages/spam??
You can formally complain to the Information Commissioner's Office
Here is a link http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints.aspx
You can also take the marketing company repsonsible for spamming to the Small Claim Court and file a complaint asking the Court to award you COMPENSATION for the time you have waisted in attending to the unwanted marketing material!
We are told that many victims have been awared damages this way.
Blocking SMS Spam on iPhones
The good news is that you can quite easily block the spamming yourself.
You can download a program called designed for i-Phones called iBLACKLIST promised to help you to block SMS spam.
Blocking SMS Spam on Android Phones
A similar program is also available for Android phones called Anti SMS Spam & Text Filter - in fact there are numerous such programs.
We hope you may have found the above information useful.
