The FTC is proving to be absolutely relentless in its effort to curtail the plague of SMS spam.
You know those text messages that say you’ve received a $1,000 gift card to Best Buy or Walmart? Your heart skips a beat and you think, “This is my lucky day!” But a nanosecond later, you realize — hopefully — that by following the instructions in the text, including clicking various links, you’ll only be giving personal financial information to scammers?
According to a new report from NBC News, the Federal Trade Commission has uncovered another alleged major source of text spam.
On Tuesday of this week, the FTC reached a legal settlement with a Florida-based affiliate marketing company and its two principals accused of sending well over 40 million deceptive text messages to consumers.
According to the same report, the FTC settlement prohibits the company from continuing to spam consumers. It also obligated them to turn over their remaining assets and “imposes a partially suspended monetary judgment of $377,321, which is all of the money received in connection with the scam.”
To learn more about detecting, reporting, and safeguarding yourself against SMS spam, visit the FTC’s consumer information page here.