Scammers are a dime a dozen these days, and that means we need to be extra careful. Not only do you need to be on the lookout for potential direct attacks on your devices, but you also need to be careful with the type of messages you interact with.
Most scammers will try to get the better of you by sending you a lot of different messages. After they get a bunch of numbers or email addresses, they’ll start sending messages, hoping that someone will fall for their tricks.
Unfortunately, many people do, which is why you should try to block these messages as much as possible.
The good news is that your iPhone has all the tools you need to keep your inbox and yourself safe. Here are five tips to help you get started.
How Can You Know It’s a Scam Message?
Scammers are getting more clever every day, so it’s become a bit harder to know if you’re being targeted or not. Even so, here are a few dead giveaways to look for:
- The Message Comes With a Shady Link. Regular text messages don’t often include a link that tells you to click on something. In fact, legitimate companies now avoid this because scammers use it so often.
So, if you see a message that includes a link offering a great opportunity or trying to scare you into checking your account settings, you should never tap on that link. If you look closely enough, you’ll likely notice something wrong with the link, but it’s easier to just delete the message and report it as spam. - Bad Grammar. Most spammers don’t worry too much about grammar. Whether it’s because English isn’t their first language or they don’t have the time to double-check, you’ll often find a lot of grammatical errors in the messages you get. If the message contains many typos or doesn’t read well, it’s probably spam.
- The Message Has a Sense of Urgency. Most scams try to make you feel a strong emotional response so you won’t stop to think it might be a scam. For instance, they might say that a relative or close friend has been in an accident and needs help, that you just won the lottery, or that someone is trying to hack your bank account or Apple ID.
Whatever excuse they use, don’t trust anything the message says right away. If it’s a message saying someone you know needs help, call them or another mutual friend to see if it’s true or not. If it’s a problem with one of your accounts, visit the site manually in your normal web browser to see if there’s actually a problem.
Note that there’s a difference between a text that’s merely spam and one that comes from a scammer. A spam text is usually just trying to sell you a product or get you to sign up for something. Like spam emails, that may not be anything you’re interested in, but these messages are still merely trying to turn you into a customer. Scammers are trying to turn you into a victim.
How to Deal with Spam and Scam Messages
In most cases, you can just ignore spam messages. If you know they’re from a legitimate company you’ve done business with before, you can look for a way to unsubscribe. If they’re random, then you can block them or report them if they keep on coming.
The same logic applies to messages from scammers, although you’ll want to be more careful with these. As we explained above, delete these messages without clicking on any links or responding in any way, as doing so will just let the scammer know that they have a live target. Ignoring them is usually the best way to make them give up and try to find a different target.
However, if you find yourself overwhelmed by these messages there are some techniques you can use to deal with them.
Block Unwanted Numbers
Nowadays, it’s really easy to obtain someone’s information, which is why you’re probably getting a lot of spam messages.
But if you’re getting the same messages from the same phone number, the best thing you can do is block that number for some piece of mind. Here’s how you do it:
- Open the Messages app on your iPhone.
- Select the conversation that contains the spam or scam message.
- Tap the name or number at the top of the screen.
- Tap the Info button.
- Scroll down and tap Block Caller.
Now, any message that that caller sends you won’t go through, and they won’t get notified about it. Likewise, you won’t be notified if they try calling you — but they’ll still be able to leave a voice message. If you’re using Visual Voicemail or Live Voicemail, these messages will appear in a Blocked Messages folder at the bottom of your voicemail list.
If you made a mistake and blocked the wrong contact, you can manage your list of blocked contacts by going to Settings > Phone > Blocked Contacts and then swiping the contact you want to unblock to the left. Finally, tap on Unblock.
Filter Unknown Numbers
Your iPhone has a powerful feature that lets you filter messages from unknown senders. That way, if someone who isn’t in your contact list sends you a message, it will automatically be sent to a different folder, and you won’t receive any notifications.
To turn this feature on, you need to:
- Open the Settings app.
- Scroll down and go to Messages.
- Scroll down again, and under Message Filtering, enable Filter Unknown Senders.
That’s it. Now, all the messages you’ve received from people you don’t know will go to the Unknown Senders folder in the Messages app.
Of course, if you expect messages from people you don’t have in your contacts, you’ll need to manually search this folder to find your messages. To do it, open Messages and tap on Filters in the top left corner of your screen. Better yet, simply add these people’s numbers to your contacts, and they’ll appear in the Known Senders list instead.
Report your Spam Messages
Depending on where you live, you can report your spam messages to your carrier or to Apple itself. Whatever you choose, this information will help Apple or your carrier deal with that phone number so they stop bothering you and other people — at least from that phone number.
You can also report a spam text to Apple, and possibly your carrier, by looking for the Report Junk link at the bottom or using the Delete and Report Junk option that appears when you swipe to the left to delete the conversation from the main list of messaging threads. This will report iMessage spam to Apple and SMS/MMS spam to both Apple and your carrier if it supports the feature. You’ll see your carrier mentioned in the delete confirmation in this case.
You can also manually report a spam message to the big three US carriers — AT&T, T-Mobile, or Verizon — by forwarding a copy of the message to 7726 (which spells SPAM on a phone keypad).
Whatever You Do, Don’t Interact With Any Spam Text
As we mentioned before, scammers aren’t usually targeting you with these messages; they’re targeting hundreds or thousands of people at the same time. Their goal isn’t just to annoy you; instead, they want to see who responds to these messages.
When you respond to these messages, they know that there is a real person behind that number. Now they can target you more specifically and see if you fall for their scams. They can also gather information on your and sell it to another group so they can try to get the better of you.
Overall, it’s best not to open these messages at all. However, don’t ever reply to anything that you’re not sure about — even if the message says you can stop the spam by sending “Stop.” While that may work with spam from legitimate businesses, it’s a big clue for random spammers and scammers.
This also goes for messages that seem to be from people who have the wrong number and may have texted you by mistake. In most cases, these are social engineering attacks to try to draw you into a conversation that will eventually lead to a scam.
It’s important to note that replying to a message also disables some of Apple’s built-in protections. You can’t report a message as junk once you’ve replied to it, and, more significantly, links that are typically disabled in messages from unknown senders will be activated and clickable — and scammers know that.
Use an App to Stop the Spam
Sometimes, your iPhone settings might not be enough to stop all the spam messages you’re getting. If that’s the case, using an app to help you deal with and filter spam messages might be your best option.
There are plenty of apps that can help you get the job done, but we recommend you try SMS Filter, which will let you filter all the spam by changing a few settings in the app. Or, if you don’t want to do all the work yourself, you can use the app’s artificial intelligence and let it handle it itself.
Keep Your Messages Safe
Unfortunately, spam messages are part of our daily lives, and we can’t do anything to stop them from occurring. However, by following these tips and always trying to stay safe, you can at least reduce the number of spam messages over time and avoid any outright scams in the process.
Be sure to stay safe, and never open a link or respond to a spam text.