No one likes receiving a scam call or text. At the very least they're a nuisance and at their worst people can lose thousands of dollars to fraudsters.
Increasingly telcos are working hard to reduce the problem altogether, which is why Telstra has just announced a new SMS and MMS scam reporting line.
How does it work?
To use the reporting line Telstra customers just need to forward any SMS or MMS message they believe to be a scam to the number "7226".
The telco says it won't be charging customers for sending the message and it won't reply to customers.
Unfortunately, we can report that snitches do NOT get extra data. Sorry.
Forwarding scams to Telstra is a simple three-step process.
If you're an iPhone user:
- Touch and hold down the message you wish to forward and select More. You can also select additional messages from the same person
- Select Forward and enter the number 7226
- Tap Send
There's a similar process for Android users in the default messaging app:
- Touch and hold down the message you wish to forward
- Select the menu indicated by three dots and tap Forward
- Choose 7226 from your contacts or type it in and tap Send SMS
How to spot a scam text message
No, I wasn't driving at all. I don't own a car!
According to the latest Scamwatch data, texts are the most common form of scam with around 43% of scams reported between January to April this year being via SMS.
Messages like the one I recently received above are thankfully pretty easy to spot they're usually:
- Unsolicited. Look out for messages for products and services you don't use - in my case, I don't drive. They aren't typically addressed to you but don't be fooled if they do. Some scams are more sophisticated than others.
- Asking for something. It might ask you to click a link or to supply personal details. Don't do either of those things.
- Full of poor grammar and spelling. It's easy to spot a scam a mile away when simple sentences contain numerous errors.
Learn more in our guide on how to stop spam text messages.
What else is Telstra doing?
Telstra says that it's calling on its customers because although it "does block millions of scam messages each month, [it] can't catch everything".
Telstra announced the addition of SMS scam filtering to its "Cleaner Pipes" initiative in April year. The Cleaner Pipes project had already blocked millions of scam calls in the past and by December 2022 had stopped 225 million scam text messages from reaching Telstra customers.
The technology works by scanning messages for malicious links and looking for patterns of behaviour that point to
number spoofing.
Dylan Crismale
Digital Content Editor
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