Whay can I not block certain texts?

[Alex Ethridge]

I don't do texting, have never sent one and until recently, never even read one but I recently looked in "Messages" and found hundreds of texts. Nearly all are either spam or scams wanting to buy my house, wanting to sell me a home or car repair policy and a plethora of other scams. I went through the most recent 100 and found only three that were from a legitimate source so I started blocking the numbers I could and deleting the texts one by one but there are some I am not allowed to block.

An example of one that I am not offered the "Block Number" button says it's from my wireless carrier and says I've won $1000 and asks me to enter personal information. There are others that somehow the "Block Number" button is not there.

Is there any way to stop these?

 

[Dannydet]

What you described is nothing out of the ordinary, spam texts are a daily occurrence.
However, there are 3rd party apps in the play store that can help.
I use this, which stops spam calls and texts
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vladlee.callsblacklist

 

[Alex Ethridge]

What you described is nothing out of the ordinary, spam texts are a daily occurrence.
However, there are 3rd party apps in the play store that can help.
I use this, which stops spam calls and texts
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vladlee.callsblacklist

I sure would like to know how it is that the senders are able to make my "Block Number" button disappear.

 

[Dannydet]

There are many ways hackers can get around that.
If I was a hacker I could tell you.
All I know is the app I use works.

 

[Alex Ethridge]

There are many ways hackers can get around that.
If I was a hacker I could tell you.
All I know is the app I use works.

Thanks for the info and I might give it a try but I'm using a call blocker that Google banned resulting its discontinuance by the developer. It works well and has a very useful feature not found in any call blocker before or since. I am kind of afraid it might be interfered with if I install another blocking program.

 

[svim]

Never reply to any of those spam messages, all that does is notify the jerk who sent it to your that your phone number is a valid, in use number. Most of those idiots just use scripts to send out their junk messages in bulk, dozens or thousands at a time, and if they get even a 1 or 2% reply that's all they need.

But if you don't do any text messaging to begin with, there's no need to even have that Messages app enabled. All it's doing is wasting your phone's system resources and needlessly increasing your online exposure. Personally I can't get by a day without text messaging but if you are more disciplined and can simply do without it, go into the Settings >> Apps menu, find and open the Messages app entry, tap on Force stop, then find and then tap on the Clear data button (that wipes the app's config and settings files, and the app's cache). Now tap on the Disable button. That will stop the app from running, actively and in the background. If the Disable button is greyed out and not accessible, you might need to go the Default apps menu and un-select the Messages app, now try to Disable it again.