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Ask HN: Should you reply STOP to unwanted texts?

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Re: Ask HN: Should you reply STOP to unwanted texts?

#171

Post by fy20 »

danesparza wrote: post #90
mikesabat wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking mostly for the US here. The STOP keyword is mandated as unsubscribe at the carrier level (Verizon, ATT, TMo) not just the vendor level. So if you reply STOP, it's very likely that you will not receive another message from that number. This will be true for any programmatic SMS vendor. There could be smaller scale & more manual approaches, but that would be rare. There has been a big effort in the last year+…

Aside from Pig Butchering (see other comments) this also verifies a number is real or in-use when somebody replies.

You can verify a phone number is real and active without needing them to reply, or without someone even receiving a notification.

1) SMS supports receipt functionality, which means the sender can be notified when a message is delivered to a handset. This happens at the carrier level, so you can't turn it off.

2) SMS supports 'silent' messages which are a different message class that is not shown to users.

Re: Ask HN: Should you reply STOP to unwanted texts?

#173

Post by willcipriano »

Double_a_92 wrote: post #83
dragontamer wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's done with slave labor. It's called pig butchering. You kidnap people, hold them in Cambodia or whatever (lots of locations where local criminal gangs rule) so the locals don't bother checking for literally kidnapped slaves. If police stop by, pay them off and make up a story about debts and punishment. Then you use the slaves to scam others in pig butchering scams. If the slaves refuse, you beat them until they…

Btw this is also used as a sob-story tactic by the scammers if you eventually call them out after some time.

Yeah a lot of it happens in office buildings in places like Nigeria. People wearing business casual clothes and everything. At first glance it just looks like a normal company.

Re: Ask HN: Should you reply STOP to unwanted texts?

#174

Post by coldpie »

jonathanstrange wrote: post #69

A Golden Rule of the internet says that you should never reply to unwanted texts on any medium: - stalkers and trolls live off reactions, both positive and negative ones - spammers will use your reply to verify there's a human at the other side - colleagues and friends will hate you because everybody thinks they're important Replying only has negative effects. Use client-side filtering, kill files, blocking functions…

> - spammers will use your reply to verify there's a human at the other side

For real spam, sure, but for semi-legitimate spam like real businesses and political fundraising, I'm not sure this is actually true. I have found replying with STOP did reduce the volume of political spam I was getting. I think it makes intuitive sense that they should try to respect opt-out signals: you don't want to piss off the people you're trying to appeal to. It hasn't entirely eliminated them, but it seems to have been more effective than Junking them.

Could just be coincidence, of course. Who knows.

Re: Ask HN: Should you reply STOP to unwanted texts?

#175

Post by bunabhucan »

mikesabat wrote: post #17
solardev wrote: post #3

It kinda depends on which platform handles their bulk messages. For example, if they are messaging you through Twilio, replying with "STOP" will cause Twilio itself to opt you out of messages ( https://help.twilio.com/articles/223134027-Twilio-support-fo... ), and the sender can't disable that ( https://help.twilio.com/articles/360034798533-Getting-Starte... ). It's kinda like how Mailchimp handles unsubscriptions fo…

Speaking mostly for the US here. The STOP keyword is mandated as unsubscribe at the carrier level (Verizon, ATT, TMo) not just the vendor level. So if you reply STOP, it's very likely that you will not receive another message from that number. This will be true for any programmatic SMS vendor. There could be smaller scale & more manual approaches, but that would be rare. There has been a big effort in the last year+…

You need to up the swag on your online persona. I get this message from "rich horsey lady" periodically:

>I'm Alyssa. are you the equestrian instructor that Tina referred me to?

>I'm very sorry, I just checked the number and it was my assistant who sent the wrong number, I hope I'm not disturbing you.

>Thank you for understanding, you are a friendly person, I have found the right number, your number and the riding instructor's number are only one number away, haha, it was a wrong encounter, but it was a kind of fate. Let me introduce myself, my name is Alyssa Chow what is your name?

Also got it from a "Lillian." I do hope they and her assistants find Tina's equestrian instructor.

Re: Ask HN: Should you reply STOP to unwanted texts?

#176

Post by coldpie »

al_borland wrote: post #76
danny_taco wrote: post #9

In my experience it doesn't do much. For example, I made the mistake of contributing to the campaign of a politician. Now I get texts from candidates all over the country. If I reply STOP to one, I just get sent more texts from another number, for another candidate in another state. I just got tired of replying with STOP after the 20th time. This just guarantees I'm never giving any money to any candidate ever again.

I donated $20 in 2016 and have regretted it ever since. In the 2020 election cycle it seemed some of the texts had people behind them, so I’d reply and told them if they kept texting me I’d vote for the opponent out of pure spite. That was actually quite effective, but did have to say it to a half dozen people. This time around, I keep getting texts asking for $40. Most I report as spam, others I say stop. But it see…

> In the 2020 election cycle it seemed some of the texts had people behind them, so I’d reply and told them if they kept texting me I’d vote for the opponent out of pure spite. That was actually quite effective, but did have to say it to a half dozen people.

I tried sending Goatse back to them, but whatever text spamming software they're instructed to use doesn't support receiving images, unfortunately :)

Re: Ask HN: Should you reply STOP to unwanted texts?

#177

Post by willcipriano »

dqv wrote: post #91
patrickmcnamara wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For short codes in the USA, it technically does not have to be. And in fact businesses have to regularly check for requests even like "please don't send me messages" to be compliant.

> And in fact businesses have to regularly check for requests even like "please don't send me messages" to be compliant. That's only vaguely true. The FCC has effectively said "here's a list of words that are considered reasonable opt out words and let the courts decide what is reasonable when there is a dispute." [0] They're basically deferring to the courts to determine reasonableness. Obviously it's a good practic…

> but the courts really don't like people who don't follow the instructions

If you contact me without my consent I now have to follow your instructions to stop your harassment?

Nonsense.

Re: Ask HN: Should you reply STOP to unwanted texts?

#178

Post by elfrinjo »

pixelatedindex wrote: post #155
buildbuildbuild wrote: post #135

Beware the edge case: I responded STOP to a message years ago, then was unable to receive SMS from a popular money transmission app during the signup flow to claim funds that a friend sent me. After over a month of troubleshooting, it turns out that I had sent "STOP" to that number years ago on a different device (no longer visible in chat history) and now had to send "UNSTOP" in order to receive the phone verificati…

Just wanted to say that I find it curious that you have to text “UNSTOP” and not something like “START”, lol

Probably a Cisco engineer who built that

Re: Ask HN: Should you reply STOP to unwanted texts?

#180

Post by [deleted] »

mikesabat wrote: post #17
solardev wrote: post #3

It kinda depends on which platform handles their bulk messages. For example, if they are messaging you through Twilio, replying with "STOP" will cause Twilio itself to opt you out of messages ( https://help.twilio.com/articles/223134027-Twilio-support-fo... ), and the sender can't disable that ( https://help.twilio.com/articles/360034798533-Getting-Starte... ). It's kinda like how Mailchimp handles unsubscriptions fo…

Speaking mostly for the US here. The STOP keyword is mandated as unsubscribe at the carrier level (Verizon, ATT, TMo) not just the vendor level. So if you reply STOP, it's very likely that you will not receive another message from that number. This will be true for any programmatic SMS vendor. There could be smaller scale & more manual approaches, but that would be rare. There has been a big effort in the last year+…

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