Spam texts are an unfortunate fact of life now. Looking at your phone to see a strange number or email address with an equally strange message attached is par for the course. However, not all strange texts seem like spam: Sometimes, you receive a message that looks totally legit, just clearly not meant for you. A normal message, or a typical question, addressed to someone else’s name.
You may be tempted to respond to such messages. If the other end seem to be genuinely reaching out to somebody, it only feels right to let them know they have the wrong number. Or maybe the sender is an obvious scammer, and it seems like it would be fun to mess with them—there’s no harm in getting revenge in the form of wasting a little of their time, right?
Well, not so fast.
It’s never worth responding to a scammer
On a basic level, responding to a spam text confirms your number is active and engaged. The only thing worse than a constant bombardment of spam calls and texts is letting those spammers know they have a live one. Remember: Most spam texts and calls likely aren’t targeting you directly. You’re probably another number on a long list of them that scammers are hitting up en masse to see who bites. Once they know your number is legit, they’ll come after you that much harder, or they’ll sell your number to others who will.
And it can be worse than opening yourself up to more annoying texts and calls. Communicating with a scammer only
