Report: Fraudsters sent 225 billion spam texts in 2022

InvestigateTV - Fraudsters sent an estimated 225 billion spam texts in 2022, a 157% increase from 2021, according to a new report from spam call blocker Robokiller.

Spam calls, on the other hand, only increased by a modest 8%, the report found.

“Unfortunately, while robocalls are slowing down in growth, robotexts have really become the most prominent phone scam problem of the year,” Giulia Porter with Robokiller said.

Porter credited STIR/SHAKEN, the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) caller ID authentication technology, for the crackdown in robocalls.

“The FCC did identify a large phone scam operation responsible for billions and billions of car warranty robocalls that Americans had received,” Porter explained. “The FCC was able to trace back and find and shut down those robocall scams almost entirely. Car warranty robocalls went from around 1 billion total robocalls a month to effectively zero.”

To combat the increase in robotexts, the FCC in March adopted new rules that will require mobile service providers to block certain spam messages that are likely illegal.

The BBB has several tips to help protect yourself from robotext scams:

• Keep track of the texts alerts you have signed up for, so you can easily tell them apart from potential scams
• Look for spelling and grammatical errors
• Know that personalized messages do not make the sender trustworthy
• Look up any phone number to verify it before you call

Robokiller also shared several tips to protect yourself from robocall or robotext scams:

• Don’t answer phone calls or texts from unknown numbers.
• Don’t follow prompts like “press 1″ or click on any links
• Never provide personal information, like banking details or other sensitive information

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