Bombarded by scammy robo-texts? You're not alone!

By Irina Ivanova, CBS

Fraudulent text messages are soaring, deluging Americans with scams ranging from false claims that a person's bank account has been frozen to online orders not being delivered, a consumer advocacy group has found. 

Over the last year, the number of robo-texts in the U.S. has soared from about 1 billion per month to 12 billion, the Public Interest Research Group, a nonprofit research organization, said in a new report. 

The flood of robo-texts comes as regulators finally make headway against robocalls, which for years have been the No. 1 complaint among phone users. Between June 2021, when new laws for phone carriers took effect, and June 2022, robocalls fell from 2 billion to 1 billion a month, PIRG found.

"Especially the scam robocalls, the ones that are most dangerous, have dropped about in half from a year ago. That's definitely good news," said Teresa Murray, consumer watchdog at PIRG. "There are some things that are finally being done in Washington to try to dig deeper and go after the bad guys."


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