alt Hacker NewsI often use the “Report junk” button on iOS but after spending years being bombarded with political SMS messages that I didn’t sign up for (always addressed me by the wrong name, and I’ve had my number for well over 20 years) I finally got relief.
I found out which provider was sending the SMS and contact their abuse line (I would reply STOP but they would just send from a different phone number) and got the name of the customer who was sending the messages. I then contacted that company and got them to blacklist my number (they were a company for sending political sms only, I have no worries about needing to get an sms they would send).
I now get 1-2 political spam messages a month, if that, and I’ve been too lazy to hunt down the source of the few remaining spammers. It went from 2-3 a day to 1-2 a month, huge relief.
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This sounds like my exact scenario. Can you outline in a bit more detail how you traced it back to the origin to ask to be put on a blacklist?
For political spam I have a rule that I refuse to vote for any candidate who directly or indirectly sends me a text asking for their vote. If everyone did that, perhaps fewer politicians would go this route.
Someone should completely automate this for users for a one time $5 fee or something like that.
Semi-recently I renewed my voter registration. When I checked the details in my profile I noticed that there wasn’t a little red asterisk next to the phone number field - it wasn’t required! Curious, I clicked the little “i in a blue circle indicating more information” thing (do those have an actual name?), and it said that field was public information, and would be shared with some political groups, etc. I immediately deleted my phone number, and I’ve noticed the political texts have slowed down noticeably.
I’m not saying that’s your problem, but it’s worth checking.