How to stop spam texts...well sort-of

How to stop spam texts…well sort-of

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Yes, sort-of. The IRRITATING issue of spam texts being sent to you from

nasty PPI companies

allegedly Twitter or Facebook telling you how to change your password

dodgy debt management companies

or any other fraudulent type annoying you with pretend texts

have been something we’ve had to put up with for too long now. Even replying with ‘STOP’ in the text is not a good idea because for many of the spammers it just shows them that you are there so they can keep spamming you!

I had YET ANOTHER annoying text telling me to change my Twitter password at 3am this morning, waking me up!! So that finally galvanised me into doing something about it.

First I went on the TPS website (that’s the Telephone Preference Service site). I signed up to that some time ago so I don’t generally get annoying sales calls on my landline or mobile phone (you can find out more about how helpful their service is in our scamwatch article). However, it turns out that they don’t cover texts.

For texts you need to go to the government site, ICO (Information Commissioners Office) which shows you what to do about texts.

They are currently dealing with the issue of dodgy marketing texts but it’s still in the process of being sorted so many are slipping through the net.

I found out that I could forward any spam texts to the number 7726 (if you’re with Vodafone it’s 87726). That means that your service provider knows about the number and, hopefully, will block it. Whether they do, of course, is something we will have to find out.

As I say, the ICO is still trying to find the fraudulent companies that are sending out the nuisance texts and they need to hear from anyone who is being spammed by companies they don’t know. If you have had this experience do tell them about it. The more people who send in information the quicker they will be able to find and stop these criminals!