Pet peeve of the week - text messages spam

[Alberto]

A relative of mine - who shall go nameless - managed to get a virus on his computer. This virus took over his address book and, as a consequence, my mobile phone number (and that of my entire family) is now available to spammers who have started to send us text messages.

We have an unlimited text messaging plan, but I know that some people pay for each message they receive. How would you like to pay out of your pocket or use up your 200 (or whatever) messages/month limit for spammers.

There should be some clear and enforced laws about this. Apparently there's nothing that you can do. Even if you could block a number, which I can't with ATT mobile, these messages come from different numbers every time.

I wish that the mobile companies had the same kind of spam protection that GMail, for example, has. With GMail I rarely get more than one or two spam messages/month - the rest (dozens each day) are clearly identified as spam and I never have to see them (unless I open my spam folder.)

Have you been spammed with text messages on your phone? Have you found a way to prevent such spam?

Alberto

[chessman]

I get spammed by my phone company.

[Rilands]

Alberto,
This has never happened to me. If it was I would not like it one bit.

[jdandy]

Alberto.......Perhaps it is time to have AT&T give you a new number. Sure, it will be a pain in the proverbial ass to let everyone you deal with know your new number, but that would end the spamming.

[streetspirit]

Originally Posted by jdandy

Alberto.......Perhaps it is time to have AT&T give you a new number. Sure, it will be a pain in the proverbial ass to let everyone you deal with know your new number, but that would end the spamming.

Agreed.