verizon wireless
You know how you can send an email message to a certain address, and it’ll be converted into a text message and sent to a certain cell phone? There’s a whole guide on how to do this; different cell phone providers have different domain names. For Verizon Wireless users, you send an email to (phone number)@vtext.com and it lands in the SMS inbox of the Verizon Wireless mobile user with that phone number.Find that annoying? Is it being abused to send you spam? If so, there’s a way to turn it off! According to CNBC, just text “off” to short code “4040” and that will disable this functionality. If you change your mind, text “on” to the same number. Either way, you will get a notification back from Verizon telling you if you’ve turned it on or off.I’ve tried it. Seems to work. After turning the feature off, any attempt
I think Verizon Wireless has supported reporting SMS spam to them via the 7726 (SPAM) SMS number for a while now. I’m not really sure when that started, but very recently, Verizon’s Alex Lawson posted a blog post talking about 7726. Check it out here. TL;DR? Forward unwanted SMS messages to 7726. What happens next? Maybe not enough, but reporting is a good first step. Verizon does say they block a lot of SMS spam, so perhaps end user reports feed into those mechanisms. AT&T and T-Mobile tell you to forward spam texts to 7726, too. Spam reports are valuable in the email world. Let’s hope that’s true of SMS land, as well.I had a chance to use it just now and what you do is first you forward the SMS message itself, and then 7726 replied with, “Please reply with the sender’s number. Messages shared with 7726 are shared with…