I get far more annoyed with text message spam than I do with email spam. My iPhone dings every time I receive a text message, and I check it as soon as I can. I really, really resent the intrusion when it’s spam.
And of course there’s the cost. I don’t pay per text message, but lots of people do. I do, however, have a monthly limit and don’t want spammers using it up.
I searched every nook and cranny on the iPhone to find a way to block the spam, to no avail.
Turns out AT&T actually does provide a way for you to block text messages. They just don’t publicize it much.
Put your iPhone down right now and go to http://mymessages.wireless.att.com/. You’ll need to register here, even if you already have an AT&T login for your regular account.
Once you’re there, you’ll have a few different options for blocking text messages.
You can block all SMS messages and multimedia messages sent to you as email. This is how most spammers get you — they send their junk to MobileNumber@txt.att.net or MobileNumber@mms.att.net. I recommend you block both of them.
AT&T does give you an option to set up an alias address, so if there are people you know who send you SMS messages via email, you can give them the alias and still foil the spammers.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for this – I just used it.
AT&T’s web site is lame and hard to use, no surprise there.
Now if only I could do this with all the “vote for me” robot calls we’ve been getting on our home phone. D*mn politicians gave themselves an exception on the Do-Not-Call laws.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robocall:
Political robocalls are exempt from the United States National Do Not Call Registry.
I’m totally with you on the RoboCalls. I’d love an iPhone app that blocks any call using a recording. Not sure if that’s even possible, but it sure would be nice.
Actually, the AT&T website mentioned does nothing to limit the kind of text spam that you mentioned and the screenshot shows: text spam from other mobile numbers. The only way to control this, apparently, is to pay AT&T another $4.99 a month for their “SmartWireless” feature, which allows blocking of certain mobile numbers for texting.
The AT&T website mentioned is only for blocking/managing email-to-text messages, i.e messages sent to 1112223333@txt.att.net or 1112223333@mms.att.net
Ha, probably ATT sends the spam themselves hoping we will buy their extra protection option.
The link http://mymessages.wireless.att.com won’t even load on my iphone… even though all other sites load fine. Did ATT change the url? 10:49am Monday 7/5/10