BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC) – If your text threads have been filled with a flood of political or fundraising texts for the last couple of weeks, you’re not alone.
“Please please don’t prove the polls right,” “For the next 60 minutes we’re 700% matching,” “Julia, it’s Barack Obama with a quick message.” The texts have your phone constantly buzzing, and for the WBRC viewer who sent us these screenshots, it’s too much.
“Robotexts have almost tripled in the last three years, so I’m sure you’ve probably seen a lot of that,” said Teresa Murray of the Public Interest Research Group (PIRG).
PIRG tracks robocalls and texts, and says new federal laws have cut the number of robocalls by 17% in that time, but texting has exploded.
“Political calls that are autodialed to your cell phone or home phone, or political texts that are autodialed to your cell, those all require advanced consent,” Murray said. “So if people are saying, ‘I didn’t sign up for this,‘ there’s a good chance it’s a scam, or you certainly should have heightened awareness, or it could just be that you made a donation to a political campaign, or signed up for something with a political campaign, and they shared your number with all of their friends.”
Political campaigns don’t have to follow the Do Not Call list, so just because you’re on that list doesn’t protect you. Scammers are also using this noisy environment to try and grab cash.
“A lot of the volume we’re seeing now, both calls and texts, they may be under the premise that they’re political from a political candidate or campaign, when they’re really not,” Murray says. “They’re just trying to hide in the bushes because there is such volume.”
So how do you stop this?
“You can withdraw your consent,” Murray advises. “If someone calls you and you pick up the phone, you say, ‘Please do not call my anymore,’ and they‘re supposed to comply with that. Same thing with a text. You just reply, ’STOP. S-T-O-P, stop.’ And if it’s a legitimate political campaign, they should stop.”
Other ideas:
- Guard your number. Limit who has access to it, and don’t give it to companies unless you absolutely have to when you’re signing up for a service.
- Make sure there’s not a box that’s automatically checked during the sign up process that gives the company permission to sell or share your data.
- File a complaint with the FCC here, or FTC here.
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