How to block text message spam
Little Miss Moneybags: Spam text messages
Great little article by a very savvy young lady in New York on how to combat the issues with mobile SPAM in the US ( sorry folks - no help for no US mobile SPAM from this article )
E-mail SPAM delivered as text messages.
The underlying point that I would like to make is that when you call your carrier ( AT&T, Verizon, Sprint ) make sure that you tell them you want to turn off messages sent as E-mail and delivered as SMS.CAVEAT!: Be warned! When you do this you may stop messages that you want. You may not get messages from airlines telling you about gate changes - and you may not get appointment reminders from your dentist or hairdresser - and you may not get updates on when the plumber is going to be coming to your house. All of these businesses rely on E-mail to SMS delivery.
What you really want is a web page where you can "white-list" the people who can send you E-mail and have it delivered as SMS. Maybe that's your partner or your mother - maybe that's a service person. Be default - no one can send you these messages.
How to ask to stop the SPAM:
Some customer care people are likely to understand what you are asking than others -- so if you need help making your point - tell them that you want to stop messages sent to an address like ( assuming you are on Cingular ):Wikipedia has a nice SMS Gateway article which tells all! From here you can see a list of all E-mail to SMS gateways as well as some websites where you can send SMS messages. In general, websites are tougher for a spammer to use.
Stopping Spam from a short code
If you get a message from a short code ( that would be a 4 - 5 - or 6 digit number ) then you have probably chosen to opt-in to some form of service (like ringtones) or entered a contest (like American Idol). If you want to find out who is sending you those messages - Check the Short Code Reigstry here.Once you know who is sending you the messages then you can contact them and ask them to stop. You should also be able to reply to these messages with QUIT or STOP and the service provider is obliged to stop.
SPAM from the mobile phone provider...
It may not be surprising to know that the majority of what consumers consider SPAM is actually sent by the carriers themselves. Consumers will call anything they decide they don't want SPAM - whether or not the sender can pull an opt-in permission out of the hat or not. The amount of TRUE SPAM is actually pretty low these days when you take out the e-mail to SMS gateway SPAM. Call you carrier and tell them to that you want to opt-out of any and all marketing messages - that will help!Crack - I mean Blackberry SPAM
Here is an article from a man who has a very detailed solution to ensure the maximum effectiveness as a road warrior who depends on mobile Email.
And last - but by no means least - We are heading into an election year. Be very wary of giving your mobile phone number to anyone even remotely connected to politics or you'll be getting a text messages like there isn't any tomorrow. Political SPAM is exempt from CAN-SPAM ( which is largely a piece of legislation to give people guidelines on how they CAN SPAM you legally - USELESS! ).
If you find this useful - please send the link to the article along to others. If you know of any other helpful tricks - feel free to pass them along and I'll update the article. In general - let me know your thoughts!
posted by Troy Norcross at 8:50 AM
5 Comments:
I feel I need to share this information.
I'm a network administrator at a large company. Our employees all have blackberrires. I noticed an extreem increase in text message usage within the last month, so I called up our Wireless provider(T-mobile) and asked about getting text messaging shut off. They pretty much said that this was not an option. I felt a little anrgy about this and decided to do something. I found a simple way to remove the SMS programming off of a Blackberry. Using a program called "javaloader.exe" found in the Blackberry JDE that can be downloaded from the blackberry website. By using the command "javaloader -u erase -f net_rim_bb_sms" this removes the blackberries ability to handle SMS messaging. This works with any cellphone provider. I will say, that I have not yet checked the bill to see if we are still being charged for incoming text messages, but this does stop any user from having the ability to send them. I haven't found anything on the net about this process, so I hope this helps someone.
9:03 PM
Please try this at your own risk and backup your device first, as I did run across some issues with a few phones.
10:30 PM
You can also try and use mobile phone applications like TextGuard. It allows text messaging security for Windows Mobile and BlackBerry users, monitoring and archiving text messages remotely. The utility also allows you to block text messages from certain numbers.
1:48 PM
i feel like this info was only SORT OF useful.
somehow, i started receiving about 20 SPAM texts a day all at 530 in the morning while I'm sleeping. all from different short codes. i have argued and argued with Verizon Wireless asking them to PLEASE find out a way for this to stop, and they don't understand to the extent of my problem.
most of them say "sorry to see you go....." or "you will no longer be receiving texts from 'so&so'...." when in reality, i never signed up for these texts to begin with!!
as of now, i feel though as if i am the only one experiencing this problem, and no one has been able to help me thus far. anyone out there know a solution????
8:03 PM
You folks are not alone. The phone companies are scamming us. It is a way for them to make free money off us. I have also been told that there is nothing I could do except turn off my phone browser service - then my Blackberry becomes just a phone. Those bastards! For now the best we could do is continuously complain about this to our service providers. Once enough people complain they will do something. But, if anyone finds a way to unload or trick the application, then please share.
4:47 AM
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