> What I want to know is, what's the purpose of those random texts that just say something like, "How's it been?" from a number that I've never communicated with? What's the angle there? Anyone know?

My understanding is that they will pretend it's a wrong number, but then make a joke or talk about some innocuous hobby and try to build up trust over weeks/months to eventually phish or scam you. I forget where I read it (maybe reddit?) but there was a poster who mentioned a personal experience with one such scam, basically a fake romance scam that led to them losing tens of thousands of dollars wiring money to a fake person who pretended to have fallen in love with them over weeks of back and forth texting.

It doesn't have to work on everyone to be profitable, just the once-in-a-while lonely pensioner!

https://consumer.ftc.gov/consumer-alerts/2024/05/why-its-not...

https://www.robokiller.com/blog/how-to-identify-text-scams

>What I want to know is, what's the purpose of those random texts that just say something like, "How's it been?" from a number that I've never communicated with? What's the angle there? Anyone know?

I inadvertently replied to one of those spam messages because the number coincidentally matched the location a relative had recently moved to (I figured it was them trying to joke around while informing me of their new number, it was something along the lines of "Can you guess who I am?"). They replied with a picture of a girl and some question trying to start a conversation. So, I figure they're just fishing for easily tricked or lonely people to manipulate into sending them money.

FWIW I didn't notice much of an uptick in scam texts/calls after that.

> There has been a big effort in the last year+ to clean up the space and require consent before any SMS is sent.

Unless it is political

You need to up the swag on your online persona. I get this message from "rich horsey lady" periodically:

>I'm Alyssa. are you the equestrian instructor that Tina referred me to?

>I'm very sorry, I just checked the number and it was my assistant who sent the wrong number, I hope I'm not disturbing you.

>Thank you for understanding, you are a friendly person, I have found the right number, your number and the riding instructor's number are only one number away, haha, it was a wrong encounter, but it was a kind of fate. Let me introduce myself, my name is Alyssa Chow what is your name?

Also got it from a "Lillian." I do hope they and her assistants find Tina's equestrian instructor.

Tell that to Rite-Aid. These jagoffs spam the crap out of people, even after you say STOP as they instruct: https://imgur.com/gallery/if-youre-too-dumb-to-follow-own-in...

Aside from Pig Butchering (see other comments) this also verifies a number is real or in-use when somebody replies.

Yes, can confirm about the Pixel. I occasionally check my spam folder and it's always just spam, which I otherwise never get. So either no or rarely false positives or negatives.

Also on a side note, the scams are really horrific. Although obviously scams I can imagine especially the older people getting tricked with "hello grandad here's my new number". Makes me wonder what I'll be getting tricked with when I am old.

I've been getting presidential political messages, each from a different number.

wonder if STOP will work for only the same number, or globally.

I also know political messages have lots of loopholes, thanks to the politicians who create the laws.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLPpl2ISKTg

It's well worth the watch, but tl;dr: it's a long-con scam. They invest as long as it takes to establish a relationship with you, and then engage you to do something (crypto mostly, apparently) involving cash online. They will say they made a bunch of money, and point you at the super-easy online exchange they used. You buy the crypto, you see the crypto increase in value (because it has in the real world) so you buy more, and more and more.

The problems start when you say you want to cash out. They switch from "buy more, it's going up" to "there are fees to withdraw, just deposit another <whatever> and then you'll get the withdrawal amount plus <whatever>" and of course no money ever comes out.

Oliver interviews people who have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars this way, some of whom still believe that if they just toss in another <whatever> it will all be resolved and they'll get their money back. It's very sad, and I'm not doing the video justice.

> FWIW, somewhat surprisingly, my google pixel has an amazing spam filter for SMS and I rarely get SMS that I don't want.

I still get notifications for these on my Pixel. I just don't want them.

Totally agree Only thing to add is for the U.S. its pretty easy to spin up a bunch of numbers so generally this will work only for a while. On the latter they are farming you for information Just confirming who you are is a mistake IMHO

Someone signed my work phone up for MAGA nonsense - I get urgent messages from “Marco Rubio”. They done honor stop messages.

"What I want to know is, what's the purpose of those random texts that just say something like, "How's it been?" from a number that I've never communicated with? What's the angle there? Anyone know?"

Some people are seriously lonely - eager to pick up any chance of real interaction. And those scams prey on that.

On telegram those spam usually comes together with a profile picture of a pretty women. With text only, it targets the imagination.

> The STOP keyword is mandated as unsubscribe at the carrier level (Verizon, ATT, TMo) not just the vendor level. So if you reply STOP, it's very likely that you will not receive another message from that number.

Is that just for programmatic messages, or all messages?

I could see problems if it was all messages. For instance suppose a relative coming to visit for weekend and due to arrive around 5 pm Friday. You get a text from them that afternoon saying that there was an accident that has blocked traffic and police say it will be several hours before the road reopens.

They ask if you would prefer that they continue as soon as the road reopens, which will probably mean they will arrive around 1 am Saturday, or stop and spend the night with another relative who lives near where they are currently stuck, and then come Saturday morning which will get them to your place around 9 am.

You text back "stop" to indicate the latter option, and now texts from that relative are blocked. Oops.