Teacher
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5 Messages
Block text messages from email address (spammers latest technique)
This should take care of this annoying issue. I just spent 35 minutes on the phone with a WONDERFUL AT&T Customer Care Rep named Gina. She & her supervisor researched and located "Article *446389". It gave her instructions how to block all emails being sent as text messages on my Samsung Galaxy S9+. AT&T has to do it on their end. As she just did it for my account, I am hopeful that I will not receive more of those pesky texts. When you call AT&T, ask the representative to look up "Article *446389". Hope this helps!!
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ATTTimCS
Employee
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420 Messages
3 years ago
Hello Community,
We've had a lot of great responses in this thread, but wanted to jump in and let you all know that we are working daily to combat the SPAM epidemic. For customers that don't want to block all email to text, there are other options as well.
Specifically regarding SPAM texts from an email address, here's what you can do. We are aware of scammers using this method and appreciate any information customers can share, so we can work together to stop these messages. Even incomplete reports with just the message content help us stop suspicious messages and protect others from receiving similar messages.
We are working on ways to better allow customers to report these instances to us. Currently, customers can forward the text content to 7726 and then report this 10-digit number as the sender: 1410100000. Our systems will be able to look up the sender’s email address, allowing us to take appropriate action.
Spam and malicious activity is not limited to text, unfortunately. You can report:
Thanks
Tim, AT&T Community Strategy
(edited)
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drkillabrew
New Member
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4 Messages
2 years ago
I am optimistically happy to report that, after having to call 3 separate times to ATT tech support, it seems the process described earlier in this thread (open article 446389, then click on TORCH, then MIND, then EMAIL GATEWAY.) has been successful. On my third try I was finally able to get a tech support rep willing to go 'off script' and follow my specific instructions as noted in the parentheses above, and since then, I've gotten no further texts from email sources. So here's a big shout-out to all those earlier posters who described the process! And a big 'shout-down' to ATT tech support for making many of us repeatedly plead with generally ill-informed tech support reps in order to find some resolution to this quite vexing issue!
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GeeKen
Tutor
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2 Messages
5 years ago
This information is in another forum - "Solved: Re: Blocking email as texts" and I'm copying it here as well. Special thanks to aloha-gal, because this is a much better solution than just forwarding it along to the FTC and waiting for one bad player to get removed,
Okay when I found this I was a little suspicious, as aloha-gal has basically the same response for both an S9 phone and an iPhone (in the other forum). But I had started getting spam emails by texts, so I called AT&T.
My angel was Al. I gave him the "Article 446389" and he said he and two other people were reading over it and not finding anything. But then he was clicking around on stuff and found it and said to add this for the benefit of your AT&T person: He said -- and this will make sense on their end -- that they should click on "Torch", then to "Mind" then to E-Mail Getaway or Gateway (sorry think this is right - can't read my own writing.) There are three options they can turn off. The first two is to block email on SMS, the second is block email on MMS. He selected both. (There is a third option which he did not do because he had no idea what it was.)
So I'm waiting to see if it works but based on aloha-gal I am hopeful, and so is my son, who's been getting many more than I have.
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jmfrancis55
Contributor
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2 Messages
5 years ago
OMG. This is the best day ever. I got on the online chat with AT&T and told them to look at Article 446389 to block email addresses from texting me. Took about 15 minutes and it was done on my iPhone !!! It has to be done on their end. Thank you for posting this information !!!!
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kdfederer
ACE - Expert
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13.1K Messages
5 years ago
As a first responder, we use the email to text to notify our members of important items. If they block the email to text, we would not be able to send important messages direct to our members phones which would hinder us.
Is there a way to whitelist certain email addresses to allow such emails to text to go through.
As a business person, when I am on the road, my secretary sends email to text to me to update me on certain items. Blocking all emails to text would be detrimental to me.
I would like to be able to block unwanted emails to texts but not all.
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suessk
Contributor
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1 Message
5 years ago
I just called into AT&T today (called via 611). The rep initially told me that they are unable to block text messages from email addresses. I told the rep to reference "Article 446389". The rep had to read through the article, and said there was a lot of information contained within it. After a period on hold, the rep had to transfer me over to the technical support staff to execute on the modification to my account. The rep from Technical Support knew exactly what to do once I told him what I wanted to do. He asked if I wanted to block SMS and MMS and updated the account immediately!!
*Key takeaway - get to tech support rep as soon as possible!
Time with initial rep: 25 minutes
Time with Tech Support rep: 5 minutes
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ottokorrekt
Contributor
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2 Messages
5 years ago
YES!! This is amazing. Worked like a charm.
Talked to Randy from Kentucky - gave him the article number, looked it up, and within 5 minutes was done.
Thank you OP, and everyone here. This may be a small issue for some, but it is a nuisance for me.
Cheers!
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NevaHC
Contributor
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1 Message
5 years ago
Another success story!! I have been receiving the same spam texts daily for the last month from an email address that begins with "fastcash" but then changes characters after that each time. I googled and found this forum. I tried an AT&T online chat with a real person yesterday and gave her the article number. She said it didn't help and said she was looking for a "free app" to solve my problem. I told her I wasn't interested in a free app but the solution in Article 446389. Unfortunately, I didn't have this page pulled up and had trouble accessing it on Safari so ended the chat. Today I called on my phone and had this page up. The woman listened to the instructions I gave her from this forum from clicking on "torch," then "mind," then "email gateway" and finally to the 3 options. She used the first two options as others suggested to block emails on SMS and MMS. She also was very excited because she has the SAME issue on her own phone and didn't know how to fix it. She says they are getting more and more calls about this but she has never resolved it before and just "submits a ticket." She was happy that she will now be able to take care of it herself when someone calls and she said "it's all because of you." Thanks to all of you for posting about this. I will see if the texts do actually stop tomorrow!! I am confident they will.
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QueenG
Contributor
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1 Message
4 years ago
The AT&T tech support person was not able to help me even after reading the Article 446389. I am tired of nuisance messages and she wasn't able to help me. She told me that it's coming from a computer and that there is nothing AT&T can do about it. I need help from someone if they've had success before I change my phone number.
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Forestfish
Contributor
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1 Message
4 years ago
I called AT&T and got connected to tech support. They looked up the article mentioned above, and supposedly turned off the options on my account for receiving text (MMS and SMS) from email addresses. I am STILL getting these spammy, porn advertising text messages - sent from random gmail accounts.
any other help out there? I can’t forward texts sent from email addresses to report them, and it’s really gotten out of hand.
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