A few weeks ago, I woke up to an early morning text message on my smartphone. It wasn’t my editor or a needy friend in a different time zone. It was a message from myself.
“Free Msg: Your bill is paid for March. Thanks, here’s a little gift for you” the text from my own phone number read, pointing me to a web link.
In the last month I’ve received a handful of such texts. In online forums, many Verizon customers have reported the same experience.
It was clear to me what was going on. Scammers had used internet tools to manipulate phone networks to message me from a number they weren’t actually texting from. It was the same method that robocallers use to “spoof” phone calls to appear as though they are coming from someone legitimate, like a neighbor. Had I clicked on the web link, I most likely would have been asked for personal information like a credit card number, which a scammer could use for fraud.
Consumers have struggled with cellphone spam for years, primarily in the form of robocalls with scammers incessantly ringing to leave fraudulent messages about late payments for student loans, audits by the Internal Revenue Service and expired car warranties.
Only recently has mobile phone fraud shifted more toward texting, experts said. Spam texts from all sorts of phone numbers — and not just your own — are on the rise. In March, 11.6 billion scam messages were sent on American wireless networks, up 30 percent from February. That outpaced robocalls, which…
