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Customer is mistakenly accused of text spamming for repeatedly replying STOP to political texts (www.phonearena.com)
submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by cm0002@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
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A Visible customer was recently the victim of what seems to be a misunderstanding of the company's automated spam detection system. According to the user, after working with customer service to reactivate an account, the response from the company alleged that the deactivation was due to the account being flagged for excessive text messaging — or spam, as that is against the company's terms and conditions.

However, there is one problem: the user states this wasn't spam, but rather they were responding "STOP" to a barrage of unsolicited political messages. This situation has highlighted a potential conflict between automated spam detection systems and legitimate user responses, especially in the context of increasing political text messaging.

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[-] Ulrich@feddit.org 92 points 4 months ago

Hindsight is 20/20 but this could have been avoided by just not replying and blocking the number instead. Replying "STOP" just verifies that it's a good phone number and that you're reading their texts. Then they collect that information and sell it to other spammers.

[-] zewm@lemmy.world 47 points 4 months ago

Exactly what I do. Don’t respond and I just block and report.

I do the same for phone calls from unknown numbers. I just press the volume button to mute the ringer and let it time out. If you hang up or pickup you get added to the list as active.

[-] echodot@feddit.uk 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Android has a feature where you can just ignore an incoming call. It doesn't hang up it just stops playing the ringtone and goes back to the home screen.

[-] zewm@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago

On iPhone it’s just pressing any of the volume buttons once. It will mute the ringer and let it go to voicemail.

[-] greybeard@lemmy.one 1 points 4 months ago

Same on Android.

[-] SMillerNL@lemmy.world 21 points 4 months ago

I’m pretty sure the US has a law that requires people to stop texting you after you send STOP. Additionally, service providers like Amazon will just remove subscriptions if they receive a STOP.

[-] EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 36 points 4 months ago

That would be really useful if the people behind these texts were subject to US laws.

[-] DogEarBookmark@reddthat.com 7 points 4 months ago

Or STOP meant "stop," not "yes daddy give me more texts"

[-] ThePantser@sh.itjust.works 34 points 4 months ago

the US has a law

Laws? What about them? We don't follow laws here anymore.

[-] gibmiser@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago

To be fair, we only selectively enforced them before. And now we selectively enforce... worse shit.

[-] Ulrich@feddit.org 1 points 4 months ago

Can't remember ever hearing about spam calls being prosecuted. And judging by the volume I think its fair to assume they never are.

[-] echodot@feddit.uk 3 points 4 months ago

Yes but they're all based in India so it doesn't matter.

[-] Ulrich@feddit.org 1 points 4 months ago

90% of mine are local.

this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
251 points (99.2% liked)

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