A crackdown on robotexts is coming soon

One of our writers, bless his heart, loves responding to robotexts. He acts super nice and tries to become friends with the scammers. It’s weird.

For everyone else, we’ve got good news. The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Friday unveiled new regulations requiring telecom companies to block spam text messages, citing a spike in consumer complaints.

🤖 Robots loooove texting… In cybersecurity circles, robotexting is called “smishing,” or SMS phishing. But don’t let the way-too-cute name fool you – smishing is no joke. Since 2015, the number of spam text complaints reported to the FCC has increased by over 470%, reaching 18,900 complaints in 2022.

• Consumer losses from robotexts were $231 million for the first nine months of 2022, per the agency, up from $86 million for all of 2020.

📱 Bottom line: Under the new rules – which could take effect in about six months – phone providers like Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile must block any text messages sent from invalid, unallocated, and unused numbers from ever making their way to your phone. Which is quite an undertaking: Americans received an estimated ~225 billion robotexts in 2022.