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Hey there, listeners. It’s Brett Molina. Welcome back to Talking Tech. So this happened to me the other night actually. I was saying last night because I’m recording this on a Tuesday, but you’re hearing this on a Wednesday. So this actually happened Monday night. I got this really weird spam text message and it basically said, “Thanks for paying your March bill. Here’s a special gift,” with a random link. Here’s the thing that was weird about it. It was coming from my phone number. And apparently it’s not just me. If you are someone that is on Verizon Wireless’s network, this might have happened to you too. I write about this in a story that you can read on tech.usatoday.com. Verizon said it is working to block these spam texts that have popped up that customers say they’ve received from their own numbers.
So again, what’s happening is they’ll get a text message coming from their number and it says they’ve paid a bill in March. Thanks for paying. Here’s a free gift. Here’s a shortened link. Which again, a reminder, if you get a link like that, don’t click on it. Here’s Verizon’s statement. “Our team is actively working to block these messages and we have engaged with US law enforcement to identify and stop the source of this fraudulent activity.” A lot of this started recently because several Verizon subscribers went to the wireless carrier’s community forum, and they talked about getting these spam texts. Also, we saw a lot of it spread through social media, through Twitter, Reddit, other outlets where these spam texts pop up. And they’re coming directly from their own cell number. So again, a reminder, if you get this, it’s interesting because when I first saw it almost looked like, oh this is Verizon telling me I’ve paid my bill, but that’s not the case.
It is spam. Don’t click on the link, whatever you do. One thing that I did on my iPhone was I would try to delete the message and it would say, I couldn’t delete it but you could report it as junk. So you can report it as junk and what that does is that sends it to Verizon, it deletes it from your phone, and you’re all set. But this is a really interesting twist to all the phishing spam text messages that you might get because it seems like it’s happening a lot lately. Spam calls, spam texting. Really frustrating, especially when you see your own phone number pop up on there. And of course the first thought you have when you are doing this is, am I reporting my own number as spam? I haven’t gotten any indication that’s the case. But again, that’s something to watch out for.
Verizon says it’s on top of that. So we’ll keep an eye on this and we’ll provide any updates on this situation. Make sure to go to tech.usatoday.com for more. Listeners, let’s hear from you. Do you have any comments, questions, show ideas? Any tech problems you want us to try to address? You can find me on Twitter @brettmolina23. Please don’t forget to subscribe and rate us or leave a review on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, anywhere you get your podcasts. Don’t forget, you can get tech news delivered straight to your inbox by subscribing to the Talking Tech newsletter. It’s out every Thursday. Go to newsletters.usatoday.com for more. You’ve been listening to Talking Tech. We’ll be back tomorrow with another quick hit from the world of tech.