Federal and state law enforcement officials continue to combat illegal robocalls, but cybercriminals are now shifting their tactics to take advantage of many Americans’ new favored form of communication — text messaging. The Federal Communications Commission recognizes this growing problem with illegal robotexts, and we support the agency’s proposal to require mobile wireless providers to block texts from invalid, unassigned or unused numbers, and from numbers on a Do Not Originate list.
The FCC action is needed to help address the worsening threat from illegal robotexts. The spam call and text blocker Robokiller reported that spam texts surged by 160% from October to November, soaring to 47 billion. The timing makes sense given the season of Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. But 2022 had already marked another banner year for scammers before the spike: In December 2021, Robokiller reported 5 billion spam texts.
Increasing numbers of stores rely on text messages to attract customers, and delivery services such as FedEx use them to update purchasers on their orders. Pharmacies also use them to provide updates on prescription orders. These are legitimate uses that help both businesses and consumers, but scammers are employing the same strategy with illegal robotexts to steal money or glean private information they can sell to other…
