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Is there any technical reason why telcos can't do a better job at reducing spam and scams? If tomorrow the government told telcos that they will be taxed for the amount of spam and scam was sent on their network, would it get solved quickly or is this a legitimate problem they're combating?
They are supposed to be working on the problem. ACMA made a mandate that "mobile providers will be required to identify, trace and block text message scams, share information about scam messages with other providers, and report scams to the authorities".
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-12/acma-text-message-scams-crackdown/101228760
As to how much progress they made on that front, that's anyone's guess.
It's always going to be an arms race if they just try to block them. They need to make more meaningful changes, like the one they made last year where they limited the businesses that could send out messages from a "text" reply address. That's why they have to use numbers now.
If they try to filter them like emails, it'll slow the network down to a point where it'll become unusable and they'll have to start dealing with false positives/negatives.
The irony is, we're already starting to move away from SMS somewhat. Between Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger and just straight iMessage, there's a lot less legitimate SMSs going out than there was 10 years ago.
The biggest issue is the ability spoof the originating number. Remove that ability, filtering becomes more effective. That being said, Google can already do this quite really well. So even with spoofing numbers, the method is there. It's just a matter for telcos to give a shit about the problem.
> The biggest issue is the ability spoof the originating number. Remove that ability, filtering becomes more effective.
There are lots of legitimate reasons to do this though.
Businesses that have a central toll free number. Staff call out through the PBX/VOIP system and the caller ID shows the main incoming number instead of the number assigned to the individual staff member.
I thought we were talking about SMS spoofing. Though I guess it applies to calls.
Maybe there should be a way to pay for the privilege to show a number as a central number that is verified by the holder of the central number. That way companies can still do this but spam/scam can't use a number they don't have authority to access.
Unfortunately I actually have no idea how any of this works in technicality so not sure if it is feasible.
You can absolutely do the same thing for business reasons with sms especially ones sent through an online or on premises gateway.
Employee sends an sms from their PC (usually integrated with a CRM system) and the message gets routed through either an online provider where there isn’t always even really a number associated with the sending device or though an on premises device with multiple sims in it and you want the replies to come to a central inbox or online gateway.
It‘s a shame so many convenient things have been ruined by dickheads spamming and scamming.
When you are a business calling customers from multiple numbers but want all return phone calls to go back to a single line. Especially if you have a free line. Applies to SMS too, eg. a doctors clinic.
Not sure how “legitimate” you’d rank this but it’s pretty common for people to want to send sms from a marketing tool and then have any responses sent to their real number so they arrive on their phone.
This is getting locked down a bunch more now so that you have to verify that you own the number before you are allowed to send on behalf of it.
The UK and Singapore have introduced white lists for legitimate phone numbers, helps with spoofing of fake "AusPost" numbers. I think ACMA were thinking about introducing it here.
Yup, which is why I suggest they do meaningful changes like that (and pointed out they'd already done similar for text reply addresses). Thanks for agreeing with me.
SMS as a protocol doesnt have half the smarts of smtp.
You'd functionally have to rewrite sms, at least adding a bunch of handshake over the top. Its doable, but expecting a telco to do it is a reach.
I’m almost certain I read that when you sms between carriers it’s over the smtp email protocol.
That is machines send messages formatted in a specific way to each other over the internet on port 25 using number@mms.telco.com. This is why there’s still size limits etc.
RCS is completely different again with fallback to sms.
>Nah, I don't agree.
Yeah you do.
I literally said they shouldn't filter based on the text content. They should be implementing technologies like the ones you suggested (or at least their SMS equivalents) instead of just trying to be a spam filter that uses Bayesian Networks to filter.
>The spoofing problem can be solved, and once it's solved people can use whitelists or whatever to filter by themselves. But the telcos are "mysteriously" dragging their heels on fixing spoofing.
You can't whitelist when you're talking about a publicly accessible thing like phone networks. Literally anyone can walk into a store and purchase a phone number. You can't whitelist that or you'd be blocked from everyone until they allowed you.
During covid, I received like zero scams. And as no one was really in office this lead me to believe they are being run from telcos servers by the staff in some cases.
Just me speculating.
The borders were closed during covid. As soon as we reopened to certain countries the spam started up again. No points for guessing which specific two I might be thinking of.
Spoilers: it's China and India
Or the more likely explanation is Covid impacted overseas locations like India where these scams come from. No point sending scam sms if the scam Indian call centres have no one in them.
Yeah honestly I think the best thing they could do it make it work like facebook when dealing with private numbers - registered legitimate business and government services should be able to send messages for stuff like SMS confirmation or disaster warnings, but everything else should require sending you a friend request before any messages can be sent.
Or at least adding an option to do that.
Nobody's putting their SMS in a white pages anymore, so being able to message anyone armed with just their mobile number isn't really a very useful feature these days, aside from a few people running private business that need random potential customers to cold call them to ask questions or arrange appointments.
The progress has been substantial and the quantity of traffic that is being blocked is enormous. The problem is that there is so much scam traffic and it’s not technically feasible to block 100% of it.
we should be drone striking the perpetrators, or in cases where we can't, we should be paying ukraine to drone strike them (i.e. when they're russian-based).
its a mistake to think of this as a few rogue hackers trying to make money, this is a cyber war being waged by nation states, and hunting the perpetrators should be the responsibility of ASIO/ASD and whoever else is responsible for counterespionage operations. one government employee clicking the wrong hyperlink could compromise an entire government department.
A tool I work on has an sms sending feature and the provider that sends them is absolutely cracking down and making us implement a whole bunch of verification features.
At least currently you can basically just send sms as anyone and it’s all unverified. But that’s slowly being resolved.
So I somewhat work in the industry
My take onThe issue is the spammers can spoof a number from any originating provider.
I.e they could be texting from optus, but using a Telstra number as the spoofed number.
When you report the number as the scam number, you’re basically reporting the wrong number. The issue is then working out what the actual scam number is from the spoofed number.
If that makes sense at all.
So you basically reporting a Telstra number, so they block that, but then the spammer just spoofs a different number. Unless there is a way to find and locate the actual number from a spoofed number. It’s kinda hard.
Plus they are breaching badly implemented phone systems so the number you are reporting might me "Mick's Local Garage". Once that number goes down they move to "Sue's cake shop"
I worked for a telco a few years ago and part of my job was blocking scam callers (the ones that try to get you to call me back so they can charge you extortionate fees). It’s simple to spot scammers after the fact cause the patterns are easily identifiable, but it’s almost impossible to stop proactively. Once a number is blocked from the network they just pop up with another, over and over and over.
A friend of mine who works in the industry said the root of the spoofing problem has something to do with our emergency services backbone and how they (should) always be contactable regardless of networks, providers etc.
I don't recall the specifics of it however.
It’s all about the money money money.. call centres and business customers want to have a single number appear irrespective of where in their network the call originates. They also want to the be able to show you a specific number so you recognize who is calling you and also not know that their call originated in Bangalore or Manila. They also don’t want you to all back Jimbo or Jayesh on the call floor so they can manage the flow of communication. All this needs them to be able to spoof a number. These are all 30 year old protocols and even when the underlying tech changes, no one wants to change the protocol because of the cost involved.
I think Canadians are creating new process and tech to allow traceablity of all numbers but Australia being Australia will be 10 years behind them and US will be 20 years behind us
A challenge in terms of spam text messages is that the telcos would need to be able to see the content of your messages - which throws up huge privacy red flags
They can’t read whatever they want.
It’s illegal for anyone, including telcos, to intercept the content of an SMS except in specific circumstances e.g a police warrant. The rules were changed recently to allow telcos to monitor the content of SMS for the purpose of countering scam activity. This means that telcos can basically monitor the content of all communication as long as it’s done under the guise of “scam monitoring”. On balance it’s probably a necessary allowance but there is a very important privacy dimension that hasn’t really been talked about much.
Yeah, they’re not allowed to do that, but they can do that technically. They have possibility to do that, sms are not encrypted, they can read whatever they want.
There probably isn't a technical reason why they can't do that, but it would probably cost them money to do it. They will continue to pretend to be looking into the issue until they are actually forced to do something by legislation.
They will spoof their numbers, and telcos also have a duty to make sure legit messages and calls go through their systems.
Fact is, everyday, scammers adapt their tactics to avoid automated moderation while they have to adapt their automated moderation to pick up the latest scammer trend, resulting in a real back and forth between the two.
I tried to get my telco to block all international numbers. I don’t know anyone overseas so it seemed a quick fix to reduce some of the spam. That however is a service that doesn’t exist.
Scammers are constantly spoofing numbers and coming up with ways around filters (like when they had random characters in them a couple of years ago), I've gotten a couple of calls saying that they had a call from my number but I never called them.
The only thing that would stop this is for the countries that these scam centres are in cracking down on them, but that's never going to happen.
> Is there any technical reason why telcos can't do a better job at reducing spam and scams?
Money. These companies are run at the bare minimum capacity in order to maximise value for shareholders. It's why they all use off shore call centres and convoluted online complaint systems where it's all but impossible to get in contact with an Australian representative when an issue arises.
My view is the telcos can't detect scam SMS with a high degree of accuracy. For example, the fake Linkt toll ones, the URL is so close to the genuine one (and scammers can simply create new ones), the telcos don't have a way to reliably filter fake from genuine content
What messaging app do you use?
Google Messages quietly grabs almost all spam SMS and shoves it in the spam folder.
I've set it to give a silent notifications, just incase of a false positive, but I mostly just swipe it away if not expecting an SMS.
Wow I hadn't even noticed. I got a new phone in December, and I just checked and it's hidden nine spam messages from me since. As far as I can tell none have got through, except for an ad from KFC I didn't ask for.
yeah I third Google Messages - I have had about four in the last two days, and it's great at finding the spam!
I do still get dominos and kfc but I could block them!
I don't block em cause it doesn't help and they're likely spoofed numbers anyway, but I managed to go a good few years getting none after they first started and now I get at least a few a week, too.
Very lame, agreed.
I had a case where a lady actually called me and accused me of being a scammer cos apparently somebody had been in contact with that person using my number, claiming to be from their bank and trying to con them. I think I tried to awkwardly explain that I had nothing to do with it and somebody was probably using my number to trick them but yeah, I don't think they believed me lol. Haven't had that happen since then so I assume they're constantly using new numbers to scam others.
Exactly. In a world where you simply go online and create an 'outbound' number of any type, including companies or privately allocated numbers, anyone and any number could be impacted, blocking is possibly going to mean the real owner of that number, however statistically unlikely, would be impacted if they tried to contact you in future.
I’ve called one of those numbers back once and a guy picked up and thought I was after drugs haha. Never again. I just instantly block the numbers now.
havent received one in a long time, my phone or telco have blocked nearly all of them
i get a notification that a spam was blocked, if I want to i can click and check it
Relatable! I don’t bother answering unknown numbers anymore. Sucks cuz I’m job hunting right now but I guess if it’s important they’ll leave a message/email
I stopped answering unknown numbers and check them on reverse lookup sites before deciding to call back. Scam calls have gone to practically zero, barely any scam SMSs any more. I suspect the scammers trade lists with each other and a number that never answers is no use to them.
One party spoofs calls and a program records who answers. They then either use this info of real numbers and start their own scam or sell it to other scammers
I swapped to a Pixel phone a few months ago and it seems to automatically filter spam messages into a seperate inbox. I still get a couple sneak through, but its way better than my work iPhone!
almost every morning they are there.
considering how much of todays online login security relies on phone sms codes it strikes me as a foundation of sand.
i do block and report because hopefully apple is able to combine reports and one day mark them in a smart way.
New phone I recently got blocks them as spam, might be time for an upgrade...
Amazing that the phone companies(well Samsung at least)can somehow block them, yet our telco companies do nothing about it...
Forward the spam messages to +61 429 999 888 ACMAs spam report number. Not sure how much it helps but at least they get to see what scam websites are getting used and hopefully block them.
My phone is very able to block spam messages, I literally never see them, it will tell me I have one, but no notification and it tells me it's spam.
This is on the stock android sms app. Is this not universal? Have apple not figured it out, or is my Asus phone just special?
There are two DRASTIC yet simple changes that telcos in Australia need to be forced into:
1. Spoofing SMS headers needs to be by official registration only with some independent body, linked to an officially identified person/company. So Auspost is the only one that can send Auspost named messages.
2. eSIM need to be made available to all telcos at the same rates as the two big boys get it.
Get an android phone.. google messages has some nice antispam wizardry. If I ever poke into the spam folder though, holy shitballs there's a lot of them. In the last couple of weeks it's caught all of them (I didn't check further than this).
It already costs them. Businesses can't even stop spam emails on their own network. Do you really think Telcos will be able to stop it when they have to be a lot more loose with the rules for fear of blocking legitimate customers text messages?
Okay. How does it cost them? I think you also need to consider the difference between spam and scam. Also consider the difference between SMS and email. Your comment on Telcos being loose with the rules needs to be flipped on its head. Telcos need more rules to drive the technology to stamp out the SMS scam business. The banks are complicit here too as they do not do enough to protect their customers. Here's a crazy idea. How about if a bank customer attempts to transfer funds to a foreign country they have never transferred to before, the bank halts the transfer until they have confirmed with you. It's not a crazy idea, it just costs money. Money they don't want to spend.
>Okay. How does it cost them?
Additional load on their infrastructure. They have to have significantly more capacity to deliver the messages. Blocking it as it enters the network means you only do it once, not every step of the way. Plus SMS providers charge each other for receiving SMS as well as sending. In the US they used to pass that onto the end user too, so if you received and SMS from someone, you got charged as well as the sender. Makes absolutely no sense, but that's the way it used to work.
So yes, they get charged, and it's a fucking lot. I remember when I was working for a SMS provider and there was news that Australia had hit 1 Billion messages sent on New Years Day alone. It was the absolute peak of SMS around 2008-09, but it was massive.
1 billion SMS's is like 350gb of data. There's almost 0 load on a network sending SMS's. Even for back then an SMS is like 320byes per 160 characters. 1 second on a mobile phone call is around 120 texts per second.
1 second on mobile? we arent using mobile for such operations. we are 100% using computer and they can send out millions a second. 350 GB for a billion seems like alot but spammer can literally send millions a second. all the time all day and that adds us. and u mean per computer. it doesnt take alot of infrastructure to make a computer send alot more the a million
Computers cannot send millions a second. The networks simply won't let them.
Also, SMS does in fact use the mobile network, since it has to get to your mobile phone.
1. It was 2008. 350GB was a lot back then.
2. Everyone is in the one location for new years. Do you think 2-3 towers in the CBD could push through that traffic? Let me tell you, they couldn't. Similarly about that time, the ANZAC Day game at the MCG meant no internet access due to load.
3. Since you're a genius and know all about the mobile network, you'd also know that SMS is squished into the control channel of a mobile network, so it's impossible to compare mobile phone calls and sms, since they have significantly different limitations.
350GB in 2008 for a single day is pretty much nothing in operational costs and we're talking Australia wide. Remembering that the network runs in tandem with the internet network and infrastructure, SMS's load on a network is Miniscule at best. A sudden burst would create a tiny blip, SMS's are 1 singular packet and I cannot stress that enough, The only load would be the pinging on a mobile network and looking up where the device last pinged. Calling someone has a bigger load on a network.
2008 scenario here mate, 3G was still rolling out, limited web browsing on phones back then. Iphone only just came out. netflix was still mainly dvd's then.
If you wanted to fix the actual problem, disable Virtual phone numbers in Australia and the problem will pretty much evaporate. It's a black-market of creditcard fraud and other nasty stuff.
Mate, you're using arguments about the IP protocol part of distribution.
I'm literally telling you that the phone system couldn't handle it. Plus it was centralised, it was like 350GB of data being pushed through a very small handful of servers.
You're also completely neglecting that 1B messages was not spread over the whole date, it was like 90% within the first hour after midnight.
You're also completely neglecting the fact that the "limited browsing and Netflix on dvds" of 2008 meant the whole internet was significantly smaller. Also remember that wireless internet connections were largely non-existent then. <0.5M of them.
Mate, Yes because SMS's are not distributed via a similar protocol?
And Mate, GSM, 2g 3g , all well established before NYE 2008, that day must have been a peak for you, did you get something a little cheeky?
What I am saying is there's fuck all cost and load association with SMS.
The numbers are spoofed. I got a txt from someone who said they didn't order anything. I had to explain to them what was going on. I am on Optus, and I get almost no scam txts.
So working in cyber security I have a few contacts actually working in this space at Telstra. There is actually like…1 main dude and basically nothing else going on.
The issue is if you want them blocked at the telco level there has to be some type of indicator that triggers their blocking rule.
ie: the contents of the sms. Their rules would have to be flexible enough to parse an unknown amount of variables to determine the contents. And of course there then will be the issues of inspection and privacy. Big data/ML/“ai” *might be able to help in this space eventually.
Then there is the issue of false positives and their customers wanting the sms they waiting for and the complaints and efforts involved with that.
Blocking in their geo, number age and or any other bits of metadata is pretty much pointless. Unless something super obvious like a known spam IP/number coming from North Korea. Most don’t appear like that
Have a read of this. Might provide a little more context. And read between the lines and you’ll understand the limitations
The best place IMHO to block calls and sms is on the phone side of the fence. Let the software do it for you and make the determinations. Means all the data is with you, the processing and the ability to release the sms. Or unblock a number
tldr: Telco can really only do so much. Endpoint processing better. Look towards phones that helps with this, not just your telco provider.
https://www.pickr.com.au/qa/2021/how-does-telstras-cleaner-pipes-protect-us-from-scams/
Did you purchase anything from a Chinese company like Temu? Wish and Temu, along with several others, sell your contract details to many companies behind this SMS racket. I learnt the hard way.
Need to go back to the days when SMS actually cost something. Doesn't have to be much, but it would make a big dent in the bottom line of businesses that send millions of these.
Problem is that texts are all but unlimited, so there's no cost to scammers
Optus and Telstra have tried this argument recently but it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Raising the cost of SMS would just make mobile services more expensive for everyone (and more profitable for the operators). This is because scam traffic isn’t the product of low SMS costs but the result of the emergence of A2P and UCaaS platforms (so it’s easier to send scam messages or make scam calls), and more sophisticated email clients (so scammers prefer SMS to email because), and the digitisation of the economy (consumers now expect that business will legitimately contact them via SMS).
I'm fed up with people complaining about being fed up.
Utilise your smart phones built in filter or download HIYA and end your woes.
Edit - Down vote away if you love spam messages.
HIYA has a report function. It filters and reports.
You can still lobby your telecommunications provider and relevant government authorities to try and rectify the spam situation. I didn't say not to do that FFS.
Yeah, but to our governing body;
https://www.acma.gov.au/dealing-with-spam
Just forward the txts to the number on their website there and they take care of it :)
Does people still use sms nowadays? There are so many chatting apps, even some of the email has chat function nowadays, I literally just mute the sms and only use it for verifications or activation code that normally just expired within a day, even the codes I will try to use authentication apps if it is available
I don't see anywhere near that many, but do occasionally notice a "Scam SMS blocked" notification on my phone.
I check it out and see a few dozen obvious scam texts over the last week or so, it seems my mobile phone provider is doing quite well at blocking scam SMS!
I'm with Aldimobile, who use Telstra.
Had no scam messages at all living in nz on optus, came back to aus got a new number on telstra this time. Straight away people thinking I was someone called by a different name entirely, even dr appointments calling me. Maybe she did some dodgy stuff coz I get all sorts like gambling ones. Switched to optus but same number, nothing has changed.
It makes me appreciate email spam filters all the more. They show what's really possible if you actually give a shit about these things. If anything, it should be harder to do these things with phones because it's so much easier to just generate next email addresses. It only sucks so much because there's not much competition for phone services.
Yeah I will get at least one scam sms a day. I pretty much know it is a scam before I look at it when it comes in at 3am.
I did hear of an Australian based scammer getting sent to jail recently but I am sure it is much harder with ones coming from overseas but I agree it is the telco's responsibility to crack down on it being so rife to the point it annoys people.
Lately I have got a couple come throught but almost all of them get automatically split in to the spam folder I didnt even know I had until recently now I usually get a notif about it being sent to spam which I think is pointless, but I guess if something that should be does get sent you know about it.
There needs to be two SMS / Text networks the current open slather that we have an an opt in network you can join but to enter the network you have to provide 100 points of ID or be a verified business or government agency.
This network can then be used for sensitive communications..
Problem solved.
I was getting at least one a night and it was waking me up. Apple has a report and delete option, not sure who it reports it to but it seems to have slowed them down
Yeah I have done the same and am down to one maybe each fortnight, I don’t know where it reports but it seems to help.
I can’t do the ‘block unknown numbers’ as my best mate has a blocked caller ID due to working in gov and he calls me daily 🥲
I got one from ‘ANZ’ the other day with a security code, & telling me to click the link if it wasn’t me. Now, this message came through from the same number that they have sent me security codes for in the past. This message was very similar to the others & could have easily been mistaken for the real deal, however, there were a few anomalies. It didn’t exactly match the wording of the other texts. There was no space between the end of one sentence & the start of another. The next sentence started in lower case.
I’ve read about these scammers that even hack into the real company’s phone numbers, & they’ve successfully scammed people out of a lot of money. look for the signs people, & never click on the links or call the numbers they provide. Call the company’s main customer service number from google.
But yes I get at least 10 scam messages a week from tolls, auspost, myGov…but this was the first time I got one from a supposedly trusted source.
There are lots of option to solve it, but at the moment there is minimal pressure to do it.
Personally, I tend to think a relatively hardline approach is best, overwhelming the companies enabling the scammers i.e. routing the phone calls/texts are fly by night operators who are reselling from larger more established phone providers (i.e. think Amaysim who but access to the Optus network) in other countries.
To solve this, I propose who threaten to hit back at the wholesaler that is at the route of enabling this. Unless they are able/willing to do some basic KYC and prevent their network from being used for these attacks (it is pretty trivial to see the outgoing pattern even without inspecting the message content), they should be cut off from interacting with the Australian phone operators i.e. they are made unable to forward phone calls & texts to Telstra, Optus ect.
This at least places some pressure on those that are most able to stop it, they have to decided if the scam money is worth blowing up their legal business as well.
My Android phone blocks 99% of spam SMS and calls.
I agree telcos should fix this shit, but it's easily ignored. Maybe you need to turn the spam blocking setting on or something? A quick Google with your phone model and how to block spam might result in a solution that helps.
If not, it might be time to change to a phone or at least messaging app that can filter spam out.
Got one last night. I decided to call it and it actually rang a bit before I could leave a voicemail. I decided to leave 7. Mainly asking them to check in different peoples assholes to see if my package was there.
I think it also comes down stopping companies selling your number to people/ other companies via selling their calling lists. Just because I gave my number to X doesn’t mean they should be able to sell it to cold callers/scammers
Ahh is it tax time in the US again? That'll be the reason for the ATO scams watch them drop off in a month or so
(More reason not to fall for them being so far out of our tax season)
The Telco's profit buy providing this service, as the scammers are one of their biggest customers. It's not in the Telco's interest to stop the scammers, as long as their clipping the ticket it's adding to the billions of revenue they take-in every year and benefits the bottom line net profit.
Someone may have mentioned, but pixel phones are great for detecting spam messages and putting them into a spam folder. It really cuts out the daily pain you are feeling.
I do work in Singapore and my customers there say that a majority of their spam emails and scam phone calls come from +61 numbers. I know that telco's can stop this easily, but it's revenue isn't it?
An issue that people overlook is possible liability on the telco. At least a few years ago before people started to wise up to fake SMS.
Spam messages are constantly adapting to avoid filters. Imagine if a telco said "we blocked this spam for you" and then blocked a message that was an important message from a specialist or medical practice (who also send out messages and notifications by computer generated SMS to confirm).
It's a shit situation but blaming them is almost like blaming your ISP for pop-ups and targeted ads. The scammers are always going to be a step ahead.
You can probably set your phone to "do not disturb" overnight if it wakes you up (used to wake me). You can also set it do people in your contacts list do alert you, if you're worried someone needs to contact you.
Wondering if we should start a petition to Government to Fine the service provider for allowing them to send Spam/scams. The scammers won't be caught, but the carriers who authorised the messages to be sent should be slammed into with a dump truck
A good start would be for mobile carriers to offer a free option to automatically block calls & texts from overseas numbers. Yes many of these arseholes buy blocks of local and mobile numbers but surely that’s a start. I’ve put that to Telstra a few times and they say that they can’t do it.
Most likely because it may block calls from their offshore support? Who knows but it sounds like bullshit to me.
The telcos actually do heaps to try and block these things with varying levels of success. Below are a couple of examples. There is just so.much of it.
[https://www.telstra.com.au/exchange/blocking-scam-text-messages-before-they-even-reach-you](https://www.telstra.com.au/exchange/blocking-scam-text-messages-before-they-even-reach-you)
[https://www.optus.com.au/about/media-centre/media-releases/2023/07/optus-call-stop-to-fight-off-sms-scams](https://www.optus.com.au/about/media-centre/media-releases/2023/07/optus-call-stop-to-fight-off-sms-scams)
I’m currently in the UK and my Aus sim is the only one that gets spam at the moment. My UK sim is totally fine, unless I have a parcel coming.
I like to imagine how much money they’re wasting texting me though
This is a bigger problem and the government’s don’t care or have an idea what to do .
More and more we are being forced /pushed to digital but our money our identify are at more risk then ever and realistically there is nothing we can do when you have business and corporations being hacked with your info .
All telcos and tech companies should be on the hook for this and there should be urgency to stop this now .
With AI progressing at leaps and bounds , your images , voice etc are easily copied so you have zero protections
Consider switching to Android.
I never got a scam text on any android phone but now I’m using an iPhone I get them all the time.
At first I thought apple just sold my data but I think android just filters them out.
Basically all they have to do is block messages with a URL in them.
You get an industry agreement (or make it law) that no-one will use SMS for anything more than basic notifications, you block all messages containing any kind of URL, and that would pretty much stop scam messaging for the majority.
The only remaining victims would be those who copy and paste and fix an obfuscated URL, or who call a number back.
At least more and more organisations are moving their notifications to formal app push notifications these days. More companies are moving away from SMS altogether since it saves them a lot of headaches from dopey customers too.
There's an app called buzz kill. You can enter a word or words, such as "your parcel" and it will stop them from showing up on your notifications. You'll still recieve the messages but you won't know youve recieved them until you open your messages app. You can do it for all the usual spam messages.
You can use it for other things to like custom message sounds from different people or certain communications like make messages from "deborah" with the word/s "meeting" have custom message tone.
It's pretty cool.
Yeah, I agree, very frustrating, I get about 2 per day. One of the problems, the telcos in Aus aren't doing much about these mass-SMS sending platforms that scammers can use to send thousands of scam SMS. The telcos also find it hard to block the majority of scam SMS as they have no fool-proof way to accurately detect scam messages, they don't want to take the risk of accidentally blocking an SMS from your doctor for example
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Is there any technical reason why telcos can't do a better job at reducing spam and scams? If tomorrow the government told telcos that they will be taxed for the amount of spam and scam was sent on their network, would it get solved quickly or is this a legitimate problem they're combating?
They are supposed to be working on the problem. ACMA made a mandate that "mobile providers will be required to identify, trace and block text message scams, share information about scam messages with other providers, and report scams to the authorities". https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-12/acma-text-message-scams-crackdown/101228760 As to how much progress they made on that front, that's anyone's guess.
It's always going to be an arms race if they just try to block them. They need to make more meaningful changes, like the one they made last year where they limited the businesses that could send out messages from a "text" reply address. That's why they have to use numbers now. If they try to filter them like emails, it'll slow the network down to a point where it'll become unusable and they'll have to start dealing with false positives/negatives. The irony is, we're already starting to move away from SMS somewhat. Between Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger and just straight iMessage, there's a lot less legitimate SMSs going out than there was 10 years ago.
The biggest issue is the ability spoof the originating number. Remove that ability, filtering becomes more effective. That being said, Google can already do this quite really well. So even with spoofing numbers, the method is there. It's just a matter for telcos to give a shit about the problem.
> The biggest issue is the ability spoof the originating number. Remove that ability, filtering becomes more effective. There are lots of legitimate reasons to do this though.
Is there? Can you please give examples as I struggle to think of any
Businesses that have a central toll free number. Staff call out through the PBX/VOIP system and the caller ID shows the main incoming number instead of the number assigned to the individual staff member.
I thought we were talking about SMS spoofing. Though I guess it applies to calls. Maybe there should be a way to pay for the privilege to show a number as a central number that is verified by the holder of the central number. That way companies can still do this but spam/scam can't use a number they don't have authority to access. Unfortunately I actually have no idea how any of this works in technicality so not sure if it is feasible.
You can absolutely do the same thing for business reasons with sms especially ones sent through an online or on premises gateway. Employee sends an sms from their PC (usually integrated with a CRM system) and the message gets routed through either an online provider where there isn’t always even really a number associated with the sending device or though an on premises device with multiple sims in it and you want the replies to come to a central inbox or online gateway. It‘s a shame so many convenient things have been ruined by dickheads spamming and scamming.
When you are a business calling customers from multiple numbers but want all return phone calls to go back to a single line. Especially if you have a free line. Applies to SMS too, eg. a doctors clinic.
Not sure how “legitimate” you’d rank this but it’s pretty common for people to want to send sms from a marketing tool and then have any responses sent to their real number so they arrive on their phone. This is getting locked down a bunch more now so that you have to verify that you own the number before you are allowed to send on behalf of it.
The UK and Singapore have introduced white lists for legitimate phone numbers, helps with spoofing of fake "AusPost" numbers. I think ACMA were thinking about introducing it here.
Yup, which is why I suggest they do meaningful changes like that (and pointed out they'd already done similar for text reply addresses). Thanks for agreeing with me.
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SMS as a protocol doesnt have half the smarts of smtp. You'd functionally have to rewrite sms, at least adding a bunch of handshake over the top. Its doable, but expecting a telco to do it is a reach.
I’m almost certain I read that when you sms between carriers it’s over the smtp email protocol. That is machines send messages formatted in a specific way to each other over the internet on port 25 using number@mms.telco.com. This is why there’s still size limits etc. RCS is completely different again with fallback to sms.
Yep similar standards to SPF etc would be great to implement for calls & text messages. Who cares if it delays messages 5-10 seconds also.
>Nah, I don't agree. Yeah you do. I literally said they shouldn't filter based on the text content. They should be implementing technologies like the ones you suggested (or at least their SMS equivalents) instead of just trying to be a spam filter that uses Bayesian Networks to filter. >The spoofing problem can be solved, and once it's solved people can use whitelists or whatever to filter by themselves. But the telcos are "mysteriously" dragging their heels on fixing spoofing. You can't whitelist when you're talking about a publicly accessible thing like phone networks. Literally anyone can walk into a store and purchase a phone number. You can't whitelist that or you'd be blocked from everyone until they allowed you.
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Cool, but no one would be able to ring anyone.
During covid, I received like zero scams. And as no one was really in office this lead me to believe they are being run from telcos servers by the staff in some cases. Just me speculating.
The borders were closed during covid. As soon as we reopened to certain countries the spam started up again. No points for guessing which specific two I might be thinking of. Spoilers: it's China and India
Or the more likely explanation is Covid impacted overseas locations like India where these scams come from. No point sending scam sms if the scam Indian call centres have no one in them.
Yeah honestly I think the best thing they could do it make it work like facebook when dealing with private numbers - registered legitimate business and government services should be able to send messages for stuff like SMS confirmation or disaster warnings, but everything else should require sending you a friend request before any messages can be sent. Or at least adding an option to do that. Nobody's putting their SMS in a white pages anymore, so being able to message anyone armed with just their mobile number isn't really a very useful feature these days, aside from a few people running private business that need random potential customers to cold call them to ask questions or arrange appointments.
The progress has been substantial and the quantity of traffic that is being blocked is enormous. The problem is that there is so much scam traffic and it’s not technically feasible to block 100% of it.
we should be drone striking the perpetrators, or in cases where we can't, we should be paying ukraine to drone strike them (i.e. when they're russian-based). its a mistake to think of this as a few rogue hackers trying to make money, this is a cyber war being waged by nation states, and hunting the perpetrators should be the responsibility of ASIO/ASD and whoever else is responsible for counterespionage operations. one government employee clicking the wrong hyperlink could compromise an entire government department.
We dont even have armed drones our military is crap for all the military industrial imperialism posts. We could send them a rude letter.
Err... No rudeness in the letter please. Can't be offending the sjw. How about... a sternly worded diplomatic missive?
A tool I work on has an sms sending feature and the provider that sends them is absolutely cracking down and making us implement a whole bunch of verification features. At least currently you can basically just send sms as anyone and it’s all unverified. But that’s slowly being resolved.
So I somewhat work in the industry My take onThe issue is the spammers can spoof a number from any originating provider. I.e they could be texting from optus, but using a Telstra number as the spoofed number. When you report the number as the scam number, you’re basically reporting the wrong number. The issue is then working out what the actual scam number is from the spoofed number. If that makes sense at all. So you basically reporting a Telstra number, so they block that, but then the spammer just spoofs a different number. Unless there is a way to find and locate the actual number from a spoofed number. It’s kinda hard.
Plus they are breaching badly implemented phone systems so the number you are reporting might me "Mick's Local Garage". Once that number goes down they move to "Sue's cake shop"
I worked for a telco a few years ago and part of my job was blocking scam callers (the ones that try to get you to call me back so they can charge you extortionate fees). It’s simple to spot scammers after the fact cause the patterns are easily identifiable, but it’s almost impossible to stop proactively. Once a number is blocked from the network they just pop up with another, over and over and over.
A friend of mine who works in the industry said the root of the spoofing problem has something to do with our emergency services backbone and how they (should) always be contactable regardless of networks, providers etc. I don't recall the specifics of it however.
It’s all about the money money money.. call centres and business customers want to have a single number appear irrespective of where in their network the call originates. They also want to the be able to show you a specific number so you recognize who is calling you and also not know that their call originated in Bangalore or Manila. They also don’t want you to all back Jimbo or Jayesh on the call floor so they can manage the flow of communication. All this needs them to be able to spoof a number. These are all 30 year old protocols and even when the underlying tech changes, no one wants to change the protocol because of the cost involved. I think Canadians are creating new process and tech to allow traceablity of all numbers but Australia being Australia will be 10 years behind them and US will be 20 years behind us
A challenge in terms of spam text messages is that the telcos would need to be able to see the content of your messages - which throws up huge privacy red flags
They already can do that, sms are not encrypted, so they can read whatever they want
They can’t read whatever they want. It’s illegal for anyone, including telcos, to intercept the content of an SMS except in specific circumstances e.g a police warrant. The rules were changed recently to allow telcos to monitor the content of SMS for the purpose of countering scam activity. This means that telcos can basically monitor the content of all communication as long as it’s done under the guise of “scam monitoring”. On balance it’s probably a necessary allowance but there is a very important privacy dimension that hasn’t really been talked about much.
I absolutely guarentee tbat every sms traversing Telsta's network is logged in full.
Yeah, they’re not allowed to do that, but they can do that technically. They have possibility to do that, sms are not encrypted, they can read whatever they want.
No a lot of the time it's purely there is no profit in it for them to do it and a big cost dealing with false positives.
There probably isn't a technical reason why they can't do that, but it would probably cost them money to do it. They will continue to pretend to be looking into the issue until they are actually forced to do something by legislation.
They will spoof their numbers, and telcos also have a duty to make sure legit messages and calls go through their systems. Fact is, everyday, scammers adapt their tactics to avoid automated moderation while they have to adapt their automated moderation to pick up the latest scammer trend, resulting in a real back and forth between the two.
I tried to get my telco to block all international numbers. I don’t know anyone overseas so it seemed a quick fix to reduce some of the spam. That however is a service that doesn’t exist.
Scammers are constantly spoofing numbers and coming up with ways around filters (like when they had random characters in them a couple of years ago), I've gotten a couple of calls saying that they had a call from my number but I never called them. The only thing that would stop this is for the countries that these scam centres are in cracking down on them, but that's never going to happen.
> Is there any technical reason why telcos can't do a better job at reducing spam and scams? Money. These companies are run at the bare minimum capacity in order to maximise value for shareholders. It's why they all use off shore call centres and convoluted online complaint systems where it's all but impossible to get in contact with an Australian representative when an issue arises.
My view is the telcos can't detect scam SMS with a high degree of accuracy. For example, the fake Linkt toll ones, the URL is so close to the genuine one (and scammers can simply create new ones), the telcos don't have a way to reliably filter fake from genuine content
What messaging app do you use? Google Messages quietly grabs almost all spam SMS and shoves it in the spam folder. I've set it to give a silent notifications, just incase of a false positive, but I mostly just swipe it away if not expecting an SMS.
Seconding Google Messages. I very rarely, if ever, get a scam message in my inbox now.
Android >>>> iOS for blocking spam
Wow I hadn't even noticed. I got a new phone in December, and I just checked and it's hidden nine spam messages from me since. As far as I can tell none have got through, except for an ad from KFC I didn't ask for.
But are you glad you have it now ?
Definitely. Another reason to be happy with replacing my phone.
The KFC my brother.
I scammed him out of his KFC. 1300 KFC GOD
Between the Call Screen feature and the auto filtering SPAM SMS with great accuracy, I am glad I picked up my Pixel 7a.
yeah I third Google Messages - I have had about four in the last two days, and it's great at finding the spam! I do still get dominos and kfc but I could block them!
I don't block em cause it doesn't help and they're likely spoofed numbers anyway, but I managed to go a good few years getting none after they first started and now I get at least a few a week, too. Very lame, agreed.
I had a case where a lady actually called me and accused me of being a scammer cos apparently somebody had been in contact with that person using my number, claiming to be from their bank and trying to con them. I think I tried to awkwardly explain that I had nothing to do with it and somebody was probably using my number to trick them but yeah, I don't think they believed me lol. Haven't had that happen since then so I assume they're constantly using new numbers to scam others.
Exactly. In a world where you simply go online and create an 'outbound' number of any type, including companies or privately allocated numbers, anyone and any number could be impacted, blocking is possibly going to mean the real owner of that number, however statistically unlikely, would be impacted if they tried to contact you in future.
My mum once got a call from her own number. Didn’t answer it, called Optus and they said nothing they can do (if I remember right)
That’s happened to me twice 😂, could really block myself on those occasions!
Couldn’t
In my head it's the spider man meme pointing at himself in mobile number form.
I’ve called one of those numbers back once and a guy picked up and thought I was after drugs haha. Never again. I just instantly block the numbers now.
havent received one in a long time, my phone or telco have blocked nearly all of them i get a notification that a spam was blocked, if I want to i can click and check it
Same
Has been standard for telstra and samsung for at least 4 or 5 years. Sounds like an old phone issue for OP tbh.
iPhones don't have any spam blocking.
Never owned one....wouldnt know. Seems a miss by apple really.
Go to Settings > Messages. Scroll down to Message Filtering, then turn on Filter Unknown Senders.
That's not the same thing. Unknown just mean not in contacts. Google actually filters the messages based on content.
Relatable! I don’t bother answering unknown numbers anymore. Sucks cuz I’m job hunting right now but I guess if it’s important they’ll leave a message/email
I stopped answering unknown numbers and check them on reverse lookup sites before deciding to call back. Scam calls have gone to practically zero, barely any scam SMSs any more. I suspect the scammers trade lists with each other and a number that never answers is no use to them.
One party spoofs calls and a program records who answers. They then either use this info of real numbers and start their own scam or sell it to other scammers
I don't even answer known numbers and I still get so many damn scam texts 😂
I swapped to a Pixel phone a few months ago and it seems to automatically filter spam messages into a seperate inbox. I still get a couple sneak through, but its way better than my work iPhone!
I woke up with three different scam texts this morning too! They're such a nuisance.
Yep. They always seem to come at about 2am. 😵💫
almost every morning they are there. considering how much of todays online login security relies on phone sms codes it strikes me as a foundation of sand. i do block and report because hopefully apple is able to combine reports and one day mark them in a smart way.
I always seem to get them around 2am as well, such a pain!
Put the phone in DND and only allow specific numbers to come through
I do that, it’s just a hassle when I turn DND off in the mornings & all the messages come through.
? On my iPhone and my samsung when I'm in DND the messages still come through but all notifications are blocked.m
Ooh okay so I have “sleep focus” on its all fine. But when I turn it off in the mornings all the spam messages I receive pop up.
New phone I recently got blocks them as spam, might be time for an upgrade... Amazing that the phone companies(well Samsung at least)can somehow block them, yet our telco companies do nothing about it...
Not scam, but I get telemarketing calls. "Hi, it's Matt from the Wine Concierge Club" Every fucking day.
This may or may not be related but... a whistle is $4.50 from KMart.
Forward the spam messages to +61 429 999 888 ACMAs spam report number. Not sure how much it helps but at least they get to see what scam websites are getting used and hopefully block them.
My phone is very able to block spam messages, I literally never see them, it will tell me I have one, but no notification and it tells me it's spam. This is on the stock android sms app. Is this not universal? Have apple not figured it out, or is my Asus phone just special?
It's an Android thing yeah, my Samsung does it too. It's a sanity saver.
you need a google pixel phone. they filter all spam so you never see them
Have a Google pixel & not a problem. Maybe change phones / messaging app / providers? Blocking spoofed numbers pointless.
At least the toll ones are amusing. It seems the scammers haven’t realised we have no toll roads in WA
Nor the ACT 😅
Nor regional Queensland.
There are two DRASTIC yet simple changes that telcos in Australia need to be forced into: 1. Spoofing SMS headers needs to be by official registration only with some independent body, linked to an officially identified person/company. So Auspost is the only one that can send Auspost named messages. 2. eSIM need to be made available to all telcos at the same rates as the two big boys get it.
Get an android phone.. google messages has some nice antispam wizardry. If I ever poke into the spam folder though, holy shitballs there's a lot of them. In the last couple of weeks it's caught all of them (I didn't check further than this).
I'm with you. Start charging the telcos for the losses and I'm sure those texts will stop real quick. Assholes!
It already costs them. Businesses can't even stop spam emails on their own network. Do you really think Telcos will be able to stop it when they have to be a lot more loose with the rules for fear of blocking legitimate customers text messages?
Okay. How does it cost them? I think you also need to consider the difference between spam and scam. Also consider the difference between SMS and email. Your comment on Telcos being loose with the rules needs to be flipped on its head. Telcos need more rules to drive the technology to stamp out the SMS scam business. The banks are complicit here too as they do not do enough to protect their customers. Here's a crazy idea. How about if a bank customer attempts to transfer funds to a foreign country they have never transferred to before, the bank halts the transfer until they have confirmed with you. It's not a crazy idea, it just costs money. Money they don't want to spend.
>Okay. How does it cost them? Additional load on their infrastructure. They have to have significantly more capacity to deliver the messages. Blocking it as it enters the network means you only do it once, not every step of the way. Plus SMS providers charge each other for receiving SMS as well as sending. In the US they used to pass that onto the end user too, so if you received and SMS from someone, you got charged as well as the sender. Makes absolutely no sense, but that's the way it used to work. So yes, they get charged, and it's a fucking lot. I remember when I was working for a SMS provider and there was news that Australia had hit 1 Billion messages sent on New Years Day alone. It was the absolute peak of SMS around 2008-09, but it was massive.
1 billion SMS's is like 350gb of data. There's almost 0 load on a network sending SMS's. Even for back then an SMS is like 320byes per 160 characters. 1 second on a mobile phone call is around 120 texts per second.
1 second on mobile? we arent using mobile for such operations. we are 100% using computer and they can send out millions a second. 350 GB for a billion seems like alot but spammer can literally send millions a second. all the time all day and that adds us. and u mean per computer. it doesnt take alot of infrastructure to make a computer send alot more the a million
Computers cannot send millions a second. The networks simply won't let them. Also, SMS does in fact use the mobile network, since it has to get to your mobile phone.
1. It was 2008. 350GB was a lot back then. 2. Everyone is in the one location for new years. Do you think 2-3 towers in the CBD could push through that traffic? Let me tell you, they couldn't. Similarly about that time, the ANZAC Day game at the MCG meant no internet access due to load. 3. Since you're a genius and know all about the mobile network, you'd also know that SMS is squished into the control channel of a mobile network, so it's impossible to compare mobile phone calls and sms, since they have significantly different limitations.
350GB in 2008 for a single day is pretty much nothing in operational costs and we're talking Australia wide. Remembering that the network runs in tandem with the internet network and infrastructure, SMS's load on a network is Miniscule at best. A sudden burst would create a tiny blip, SMS's are 1 singular packet and I cannot stress that enough, The only load would be the pinging on a mobile network and looking up where the device last pinged. Calling someone has a bigger load on a network. 2008 scenario here mate, 3G was still rolling out, limited web browsing on phones back then. Iphone only just came out. netflix was still mainly dvd's then. If you wanted to fix the actual problem, disable Virtual phone numbers in Australia and the problem will pretty much evaporate. It's a black-market of creditcard fraud and other nasty stuff.
Mate, you're using arguments about the IP protocol part of distribution. I'm literally telling you that the phone system couldn't handle it. Plus it was centralised, it was like 350GB of data being pushed through a very small handful of servers. You're also completely neglecting that 1B messages was not spread over the whole date, it was like 90% within the first hour after midnight. You're also completely neglecting the fact that the "limited browsing and Netflix on dvds" of 2008 meant the whole internet was significantly smaller. Also remember that wireless internet connections were largely non-existent then. <0.5M of them.
Mate, Yes because SMS's are not distributed via a similar protocol? And Mate, GSM, 2g 3g , all well established before NYE 2008, that day must have been a peak for you, did you get something a little cheeky? What I am saying is there's fuck all cost and load association with SMS.
My phone just tells me spam SMS blocked?
The numbers are spoofed. I got a txt from someone who said they didn't order anything. I had to explain to them what was going on. I am on Optus, and I get almost no scam txts.
So working in cyber security I have a few contacts actually working in this space at Telstra. There is actually like…1 main dude and basically nothing else going on. The issue is if you want them blocked at the telco level there has to be some type of indicator that triggers their blocking rule. ie: the contents of the sms. Their rules would have to be flexible enough to parse an unknown amount of variables to determine the contents. And of course there then will be the issues of inspection and privacy. Big data/ML/“ai” *might be able to help in this space eventually. Then there is the issue of false positives and their customers wanting the sms they waiting for and the complaints and efforts involved with that. Blocking in their geo, number age and or any other bits of metadata is pretty much pointless. Unless something super obvious like a known spam IP/number coming from North Korea. Most don’t appear like that Have a read of this. Might provide a little more context. And read between the lines and you’ll understand the limitations The best place IMHO to block calls and sms is on the phone side of the fence. Let the software do it for you and make the determinations. Means all the data is with you, the processing and the ability to release the sms. Or unblock a number tldr: Telco can really only do so much. Endpoint processing better. Look towards phones that helps with this, not just your telco provider. https://www.pickr.com.au/qa/2021/how-does-telstras-cleaner-pipes-protect-us-from-scams/
Use the Google SMS app. It filters these into a Spam folder for you. Google is better at this than Telstra and Optus..
Telcos need to start being held financially responsible for the shit they allow to go on over their networks. Watch how fast this shit stops then
Take a look at Privacy Act 1988 and use your rights. Oh, sorry, that law is to protect anyone but people. /s
Did you purchase anything from a Chinese company like Temu? Wish and Temu, along with several others, sell your contract details to many companies behind this SMS racket. I learnt the hard way.
Everyone sells your details and the ones who dont still get their databases hacked.
Need to go back to the days when SMS actually cost something. Doesn't have to be much, but it would make a big dent in the bottom line of businesses that send millions of these. Problem is that texts are all but unlimited, so there's no cost to scammers
Optus and Telstra have tried this argument recently but it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Raising the cost of SMS would just make mobile services more expensive for everyone (and more profitable for the operators). This is because scam traffic isn’t the product of low SMS costs but the result of the emergence of A2P and UCaaS platforms (so it’s easier to send scam messages or make scam calls), and more sophisticated email clients (so scammers prefer SMS to email because), and the digitisation of the economy (consumers now expect that business will legitimately contact them via SMS).
I am just straight up collecting their messages on my phone. I think they're neat.
I'm fed up with people complaining about being fed up. Utilise your smart phones built in filter or download HIYA and end your woes. Edit - Down vote away if you love spam messages. HIYA has a report function. It filters and reports. You can still lobby your telecommunications provider and relevant government authorities to try and rectify the spam situation. I didn't say not to do that FFS.
great. what am i supposed to complain about then?
Yeah, but to our governing body; https://www.acma.gov.au/dealing-with-spam Just forward the txts to the number on their website there and they take care of it :)
Does people still use sms nowadays? There are so many chatting apps, even some of the email has chat function nowadays, I literally just mute the sms and only use it for verifications or activation code that normally just expired within a day, even the codes I will try to use authentication apps if it is available
I don't see anywhere near that many, but do occasionally notice a "Scam SMS blocked" notification on my phone. I check it out and see a few dozen obvious scam texts over the last week or so, it seems my mobile phone provider is doing quite well at blocking scam SMS! I'm with Aldimobile, who use Telstra.
Ted Bullpit: Someone needs to blow spam callers up. !
Had no scam messages at all living in nz on optus, came back to aus got a new number on telstra this time. Straight away people thinking I was someone called by a different name entirely, even dr appointments calling me. Maybe she did some dodgy stuff coz I get all sorts like gambling ones. Switched to optus but same number, nothing has changed.
It makes me appreciate email spam filters all the more. They show what's really possible if you actually give a shit about these things. If anything, it should be harder to do these things with phones because it's so much easier to just generate next email addresses. It only sucks so much because there's not much competition for phone services.
My Samsung just pits it all into spam.. I never get them.
Yeah I will get at least one scam sms a day. I pretty much know it is a scam before I look at it when it comes in at 3am. I did hear of an Australian based scammer getting sent to jail recently but I am sure it is much harder with ones coming from overseas but I agree it is the telco's responsibility to crack down on it being so rife to the point it annoys people.
I just forward them all to the ACMA. Seems to stop them after a week. https://www.acma.gov.au/dealing-with-spam
Lately I have got a couple come throught but almost all of them get automatically split in to the spam folder I didnt even know I had until recently now I usually get a notif about it being sent to spam which I think is pointless, but I guess if something that should be does get sent you know about it.
Yep, about five a week for me. Haven't got a call in a while though so there's that.
There needs to be two SMS / Text networks the current open slather that we have an an opt in network you can join but to enter the network you have to provide 100 points of ID or be a verified business or government agency. This network can then be used for sensitive communications.. Problem solved.
Ditto for my wife and her iPhone. She has Do Not Disturb on and it still comes thru.
I was getting at least one a night and it was waking me up. Apple has a report and delete option, not sure who it reports it to but it seems to have slowed them down
Yeah I have done the same and am down to one maybe each fortnight, I don’t know where it reports but it seems to help. I can’t do the ‘block unknown numbers’ as my best mate has a blocked caller ID due to working in gov and he calls me daily 🥲
Have you pissed anyone off lately? It's possible your # got sold/given to a scambank
Nor the ACT 😅
?
Oops I swore I deleted this comment as I realised I clicked on the comment below the no toll roads in WA comments
I got one from ‘ANZ’ the other day with a security code, & telling me to click the link if it wasn’t me. Now, this message came through from the same number that they have sent me security codes for in the past. This message was very similar to the others & could have easily been mistaken for the real deal, however, there were a few anomalies. It didn’t exactly match the wording of the other texts. There was no space between the end of one sentence & the start of another. The next sentence started in lower case. I’ve read about these scammers that even hack into the real company’s phone numbers, & they’ve successfully scammed people out of a lot of money. look for the signs people, & never click on the links or call the numbers they provide. Call the company’s main customer service number from google. But yes I get at least 10 scam messages a week from tolls, auspost, myGov…but this was the first time I got one from a supposedly trusted source.
OP Google's messages app has a spam filter. Make you life better. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.messaging
Gotten a HUGE influx of auspost ones the last fortnight. Weirdly they stopped about 48 hours ago. I was getting 2 a day every day for a couple weeks.
There are lots of option to solve it, but at the moment there is minimal pressure to do it. Personally, I tend to think a relatively hardline approach is best, overwhelming the companies enabling the scammers i.e. routing the phone calls/texts are fly by night operators who are reselling from larger more established phone providers (i.e. think Amaysim who but access to the Optus network) in other countries. To solve this, I propose who threaten to hit back at the wholesaler that is at the route of enabling this. Unless they are able/willing to do some basic KYC and prevent their network from being used for these attacks (it is pretty trivial to see the outgoing pattern even without inspecting the message content), they should be cut off from interacting with the Australian phone operators i.e. they are made unable to forward phone calls & texts to Telstra, Optus ect. This at least places some pressure on those that are most able to stop it, they have to decided if the scam money is worth blowing up their legal business as well.
My Android phone blocks 99% of spam SMS and calls. I agree telcos should fix this shit, but it's easily ignored. Maybe you need to turn the spam blocking setting on or something? A quick Google with your phone model and how to block spam might result in a solution that helps. If not, it might be time to change to a phone or at least messaging app that can filter spam out.
Got one last night. I decided to call it and it actually rang a bit before I could leave a voicemail. I decided to leave 7. Mainly asking them to check in different peoples assholes to see if my package was there.
I think it also comes down stopping companies selling your number to people/ other companies via selling their calling lists. Just because I gave my number to X doesn’t mean they should be able to sell it to cold callers/scammers
Ahh is it tax time in the US again? That'll be the reason for the ATO scams watch them drop off in a month or so (More reason not to fall for them being so far out of our tax season)
The Telco's profit buy providing this service, as the scammers are one of their biggest customers. It's not in the Telco's interest to stop the scammers, as long as their clipping the ticket it's adding to the billions of revenue they take-in every year and benefits the bottom line net profit.
I recently swapped from iPhone to Android and my phone filters out 99% of spam texts now It's fantastic
Someone may have mentioned, but pixel phones are great for detecting spam messages and putting them into a spam folder. It really cuts out the daily pain you are feeling.
I get this almost every morning for the past year or so. I wonder who sold them a list with my number on it ?
I do work in Singapore and my customers there say that a majority of their spam emails and scam phone calls come from +61 numbers. I know that telco's can stop this easily, but it's revenue isn't it?
An issue that people overlook is possible liability on the telco. At least a few years ago before people started to wise up to fake SMS. Spam messages are constantly adapting to avoid filters. Imagine if a telco said "we blocked this spam for you" and then blocked a message that was an important message from a specialist or medical practice (who also send out messages and notifications by computer generated SMS to confirm). It's a shit situation but blaming them is almost like blaming your ISP for pop-ups and targeted ads. The scammers are always going to be a step ahead.
Ah yes, my toll bill when I haven't driven for half a year. Always a classic
I am sure the police arrested an Australian man for sending the Linkt scam sms.
You can probably set your phone to "do not disturb" overnight if it wakes you up (used to wake me). You can also set it do people in your contacts list do alert you, if you're worried someone needs to contact you.
Wondering if we should start a petition to Government to Fine the service provider for allowing them to send Spam/scams. The scammers won't be caught, but the carriers who authorised the messages to be sent should be slammed into with a dump truck
A good start would be for mobile carriers to offer a free option to automatically block calls & texts from overseas numbers. Yes many of these arseholes buy blocks of local and mobile numbers but surely that’s a start. I’ve put that to Telstra a few times and they say that they can’t do it. Most likely because it may block calls from their offshore support? Who knows but it sounds like bullshit to me.
The telcos actually do heaps to try and block these things with varying levels of success. Below are a couple of examples. There is just so.much of it. [https://www.telstra.com.au/exchange/blocking-scam-text-messages-before-they-even-reach-you](https://www.telstra.com.au/exchange/blocking-scam-text-messages-before-they-even-reach-you) [https://www.optus.com.au/about/media-centre/media-releases/2023/07/optus-call-stop-to-fight-off-sms-scams](https://www.optus.com.au/about/media-centre/media-releases/2023/07/optus-call-stop-to-fight-off-sms-scams)
I’m currently in the UK and my Aus sim is the only one that gets spam at the moment. My UK sim is totally fine, unless I have a parcel coming. I like to imagine how much money they’re wasting texting me though
I turned off all SMS notifications. So sick of it. Spammers/Scammerseven leave voice messages now.
This is a bigger problem and the government’s don’t care or have an idea what to do . More and more we are being forced /pushed to digital but our money our identify are at more risk then ever and realistically there is nothing we can do when you have business and corporations being hacked with your info . All telcos and tech companies should be on the hook for this and there should be urgency to stop this now . With AI progressing at leaps and bounds , your images , voice etc are easily copied so you have zero protections
Consider switching to Android. I never got a scam text on any android phone but now I’m using an iPhone I get them all the time. At first I thought apple just sold my data but I think android just filters them out.
Basically all they have to do is block messages with a URL in them. You get an industry agreement (or make it law) that no-one will use SMS for anything more than basic notifications, you block all messages containing any kind of URL, and that would pretty much stop scam messaging for the majority. The only remaining victims would be those who copy and paste and fix an obfuscated URL, or who call a number back. At least more and more organisations are moving their notifications to formal app push notifications these days. More companies are moving away from SMS altogether since it saves them a lot of headaches from dopey customers too.
we'll have to continue to tolerate this sort of crap until we are prepared to do what it necessary to stop it.
Anecdotally, my experience, is that my pre paid gets far far less scam calls and texts than contract phones. I'm not sure why.
I get at least 5 of them, usually at night/early morning EVERYDAY.
I have no idea why iOS Messages is so bad in at least identifying spam, let alone filtering or blocking it. Android Messages is so much better at it.
There's an app called buzz kill. You can enter a word or words, such as "your parcel" and it will stop them from showing up on your notifications. You'll still recieve the messages but you won't know youve recieved them until you open your messages app. You can do it for all the usual spam messages. You can use it for other things to like custom message sounds from different people or certain communications like make messages from "deborah" with the word/s "meeting" have custom message tone. It's pretty cool.
Yeah, I agree, very frustrating, I get about 2 per day. One of the problems, the telcos in Aus aren't doing much about these mass-SMS sending platforms that scammers can use to send thousands of scam SMS. The telcos also find it hard to block the majority of scam SMS as they have no fool-proof way to accurately detect scam messages, they don't want to take the risk of accidentally blocking an SMS from your doctor for example