What now?

In the past week, I've started receiving text spam... For those of you who don't know what it is, basically that's spam that's sent via text message to my cell phone.

Just this past Friday, it got worse. I got maybe 6 or 7 messages on Friday and I finally had to call Verizon Wireless to complain. The representative I spoke with was less than helpful. His first suggestion? "Have you considered changing your phone number?". Um, no. I've had this number since...well, since maybe 1998 - TEN YEARS. That's ten years of contacts I'd have to let know that my number has changed. No thank you. He suggested blocking text messages to my phone (thus negating the service of unlimited text messages that I pay for each month). No thanks to that too. He then told me to visit Verizon Wireless' text site (www.vtext.com) and set my preferences so I don't receive texts from web or email based addresses. If I wasn't willing to do that, he admitted that I was basically stuck receiving these messages. Um...? So I tried the web option in hopes that I could still receive emails from family & friends, but that seemed to be the key that unlocked Pandora's box.

On Saturday, by 8:30pm I received 19 - COUNT THEM, NINETEEN - spam texts!! I called Verizon again and again the representative suggested the phone number change and the text blocking. Does anyone at Verizon actually keep track of each accounts' activities and phone calls when you call in to speak with them? So basically I had to rehash my conversation from Friday.... Dimitrius was very nice and suggested the Vtext option again - so this time I chose to block emails as well... I also suggested to him that Verizon create a spam blocker much like emails have where customers have the option to block all texts EXCEPT those from people in their address book! Hey, if it works for Yahoo, Gmail and Hotmail, why not Verizon? So he took my statement and I made sure to point out to him that if this happened to the President or CEO of Verizon, the problem would be fixed right away!! (I'm still holding out for their cell #s - I'd like to forward all my spam to them and see how quickly the problem is solved!!)

After getting off the phone with Dimitrius (Saturday's guy), I received another 6 spam texts within an hour. Plus another 3 overnight. Nice spam blocking Verizon!

Sunday, I received another 10 or so.... I called Sunday night again and got the same schpeal - "would you like to change your cell #?" NO. NO I WOULD NOT LIKE TO. I told the representative this time that if I have to change my cell number, I'm going to change cell companies too. I pay Verizon money to solve problems and provide me a service, NOT for me to work around THEM. So phone number and text blocking suggestion out of the way, I finally spoke to a tech person who told me Verizon is aware of the situation and that in the past couple of weeks, spamming has increased, so obviously something is up (ya think?)... They are working on solving the problem, blah blah blah. She gave me one more option for blocking texts via Vtext.com and "that should definitely work". So I tried it....

So far since I've change that last option, I've received about 12 more spam texts - including 3 overnight (one of which scared Luna when the pillow shook from the vibrating alert).

Nice.

So what now?