Mobile Spam, Part III
This is the continuing saga of trying to block the increasing spam text messages from my cell phone which uses T-Mobile for its service. If you’re just joining us, check out Part I and Part II before reading the conclusion.After waiting for three days to get onto the T-Mobile website, I navigated over to “Communication Tools.” From there I selected “Spam and Email Filters.” Great, I was finally on the correct screen, which was no small achievement at this point!
First I selected the option that I could only receive messages from other cell phones. I figure that most text spammers are sending their stuff through the email system, and not from keying it on the tiny keyboard on their phone, so that should cut things down to size as a starter move.
Next, remember that the T-Mobile guy said that I couldn’t block all text messages? While that may be potentially true, I figured out a way to practically do it. What they intend for you to do is to generate keywords to block that if the message contains those words, it gets identified as spam. While this sounds great in theory, we all know from our email accounts that it never really works. I’ve had spam email blockers on all of my accounts for years, and yet I still receive hundreds of spam emails every week, just like many other users.
Rather than selecting keywords that then identify the email as spam, I went another route. I decided to set it up that the text message would only go through if it contains a certain phrase. That phrase is equivalent to a random twenty character string, which makes the Wargames code look easy to guess. So while I can’t block the text message service completely, this should raise the bar high enough to keep anything from getting through.
While there was an option to have the messages forwarded to an email account, I chose the discard option. I already have plenty of spam, and I don’t need any more. I hope this helps some other folks out there, as since I did this, I have received no further mobile spam messages.
--Jonas
Labels: customer service, mobile, spam, T-Mobile, technical support, wireless
posted by digitaldoc at 9:12 PM
3 Comments:
Glad you got it taken care of!
Too bad it wasnt as easy as calling and having the texting crap turned off :(
Mike
We don't say "Stumbling through technology one tip at a time for nothing!" Yeah, it should have been a lot easier. I dare say that the more average T-Mobile customer wasn't going to easily get this done. If I don't want texting on my phone, or some other service, they should just turn that off for me. That's just good customer service. As it is, unless a major dead zone near my house gets fixed before the end of my contract, I'm planning on jumpin' ship...
I'm with Verizon and ran into this problem. For 8 years I've had my account with not one single spam text message, until last week. When the first one showed up, I assumed it was some kind of quirk. But then two more came later that day, followed by two more DURING THE NIGHT (one at 1am!). I was outraged. I couldn't remember ever giving my cell phone number to an untrusted agency.
Apparently people can send text messages through a web page, so no phone is involved in the sending. Thus, spammers can go to town loading up your phone with junk. I'm also on the $0.10/message plan, because I don't text a lot. So, this was more than just an inconvenience--a financial drain.
Fortunately, Verizon has some good spam blocking options through their VText.com website. I didn't want to block all e-mail based text messaging, so I was fortunate that all of the spam was coming from the "live.com" domain. I just blocked that domain and I'm rid of the spam.
Based on this experience, I suggest that people do not casually give out their cell phone numbers to websites, except for those you can really trust. E-mail should be an effective enough means of communication for other parties.
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