How to Stop Spam SMS What to Do

Spam text messages are unwanted and unsolicited commercial advertisements that are sent to wireless phones through text, pictures, as well as videos. The messages usually indicate that you have won a prize thereby enticing you to respond so as to claim your winnings. The intent of the spammer is to get access to your personal details so as to sell to another. It is the equivalent of phishing, which is commonly found with emails.

These unwarranted text messages are usually a nuisance and you have to pay the cost depending on the terms that you have with your cell phone carrier. If you do not know how to stop spam SMS, you may start complaining to your carrier but that may not get you very far. A better approach is to lodge and file a complaint with your local communications commission since they are empowered to impose fines and other measures against spammers. After spammers are hit with fines running into thousands of dollars they gradually stop.

Filing a complaint is easy as you can do it online. You will be required to fill in your details including name, contact information, the phone number, which the spam SMS was sent to, the date and the time that the messages were received, the service or product that was being offered as well as the company that sent you the message.

The challenge of how to stop spam SMS is where spammers use false names and contacts in their messages. However, you can establish the real names as well as addresses by running a relatively easy reverse phone number look up. There are numerous websites that offer this service at a small charge.

One of the things that you should never do is to respond to spam messages as this alerts a spammer that your number is in active mode. There are carriers who help to get rid of spam messages where you can forward the spam SMS that you receive to them and they investigate the origin. They do not charge you for forwarding the SMS to them. Where it is established that unsolicited messages were being sent such accounts are terminated.

Do not be worried about how a spammer got your number as they usually use computer programs where they generate numerous random numbers with the hope of making a connection to a live account. Even if you respond with the STOP command, you have played right into their hands as this confirms that your account is live. Another tip on how to stop spam SMS is by ignoring the spam message completely. This gives an indication to the spammer that your account is not active.

There are also cell phone carriers who have services where you are provided with a second inbox where you choose which one to store important messages and the other one for potential spoof or spam messages. Spamming is increasingly becoming a major problem. Chances are that if you have never received spam then you will most likely receive them in the near future. Everyone should be more careful about who they give out their mobile phone numbers to.

Many third party agencies are today targeting phone numbers as a way of marketing. Deleting the spoof or spam messages as well as cleaning up your inbox is not a complete solution. If you find that you are wasting your time deleting countless messages and your phone has android features you can go to the Google play store at play.google.com. After opening the site click on SMS blocker and indicate the number that you wish to block.