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I didn’t reply but many people who received similar messages did. Some even throw it back at spammers by making up crazy stories and sending funny messages to disappoint those on the other end. They battle Snark and in some cases post screenshots of their conversations online.
Jack Whittaker, a PhD student in sociology at the University of Surrey, says spam texts are on the rise, and so are the numbers of those responding with “fraud,” which is “an act of wasting a criminal’s time.” Who is studying the phenomenon? However, experts say replying spoils the issue as it opens a person up to more spam texts.
Spam texts trying to trick their recipients into giving up valuable information are not new. Some of the earliest digital spam was sent via email chain letters; The most notorious were scams in which someone impersonating a Nigerian prince claimed to need the help of the buyer to deposit large sums of money.
As smartphones became widespread, scammers switched to messaging. And in 2022, spam texts will be much more personal. They often fake a misdirected text, perhaps address the recipient by the wrong name, or use a generic first line to ask for a response (“How’s it going” or “I had fun tonight!” is common).
If you have received such messages recently, you are not alone. “There has been an incredible increase in spam texts,” says J. Michael Skiba, a professor at Colorado State University specializing in cybercrime and international financial fraud. Globally, 90 billion were sent last year, he says; In the US, 47 billion spam texts were sent between January and October 2021, up 55% from the same period in 2020. According to RoboKiller, a spam blocking firm, scam texts caused $86 million in losses in 2020 in the US alone. “People are just bombarded with these,” Skiba says.
From a scammer’s point of view, texting has many advantages over email, Skiba says – a note from a phone number raises less suspicion than a note from a sketchy email address, and the mundane nature of texting makes grammatical errors less noticeable. Also, many people feel a very human urge to respond to a text. “It’s a psychological trick for you to know the text isn’t correct, but it appeals to your desire to help out and say, ‘You got the wrong number,'” Skiba says.
But the person on the other end is most likely working at a call center with an organized group of scammers and is hoping you can say exactly that. A single answer is all it takes for a scammer to verify that a phone number is genuine. This response creates a domino effect that can invite more spam messages to your phone. As a result, scammers want to at least verify your number in order to potentially sell it to other groups; Receiving your personal information is a sweet bonus.
“I recommend 100% not responding at all,” Skiba says.
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