Can you tell me what might be going on with this text that I received?

Yes. Mine are all spam.

They are hoping that you will respond so they can verify that it’s a live phone number. Then they will sell your number to any spammer/scammer willing to buy it. Any link attached is most likely malware. I’m with Verizon and I have the option to mute a conversation. That way I no longer see anything that they send. At some point, I receive a report of unwanted texts that I’ve received and I have the opportunity to report it as spam or scammer. Once I do that, the text is automatically deleted from my phone and put on Verizon’s spammer/scammer list. Even though I can’t see the number related to the text, Verizon must be able to see something because it reports back as blocked. It also goes into their community database of spammers/scammers and automatically blocked to most of their customers. I think most of the cell providers have now started this service to help protect their customers

Don’t click on any links and don’t respond. That’s what I do anyway.

That’s what she said @JLeslie. She made a point of saying she did not respond or click on the link.

Last week I got one of those texts. It said to send back “0” if I wanted to opt out. I thought that’s a trap for sure, because once I let them know I don’t want to hear from them, they’ll know that I read their text, and then they will sell my number to any number of scammers!

I would just delete/erase and not give it a second second of my time.

Pretty sure scammers don’t “buy” or “sell” numbers. They have computers that can crunch through a million phone numbers a day.

I got a text from a number I don’t recognize, which addressed me by name, and stated they were currently at my front door. It was past midnight.

Oh! @Patty_Melt! What did you do? That must have been scary!

@Snipsnip: I think it would be flippant to not give it a second thought, as it could possibly mean spam or having been hacked. Being hacked could equate to identity theft. I think it’s worthy of the question and concern.

@snowberry I did nothing. I was sitting five feet from the door. I would have heard anyone come up the steps. Anybody who knows my name would have knocked. Somebody got my name and number from a list. Yes, information is sold from one company to another. I have used those lists at more than one company.

Whoever sent that text definitely wanted a reply, which they did not get.