Everyone has received one, and there are plenty of people who have fallen victim to them – SMS Scams. Now, Telstra customers can do their bit to help others by reporting the scams they receive to a new SMS Scam line using the number 7226, which spells out SCAM on your phone’s keypad.
Telstra is already blocking some 23 million scams every month as part of what they call their “Cleaner Pipes initiative”, but the scammers are always one step ahead, creating new scams, changing the wording or format of a scam, so there’s always someone who is going to receive the scam messages before they get detected as scams.
Even Telstra make the point that “the reality is – we can’t catch everything.”
For the Telstra customer it’s a simple process, forward any scam messages you receive.
Press and hold on any message, on an iPhone choose MORE then press the forward arrow. On Android, press the three dots after selecting a message and choose Forward.
Send it to 7226 and you’ve done your bit.
What happens at Telstra’s end is a bit more complex, with systems established to collate those messages and “feed” the computer systems that detect scams on the network.
It’s more good news for us, and bad news for Scammers – but – more is needed.
These kinds of systems should be available to All Australians, on all telcos – and the Government should be making that happen.
Until then, Telstra is doing more than any other company in this space.
