Spam messages and calls have come back to haunt you

Missing those 1254 spam new message notifications you got everyday? Well, they’re back! It’s been barely more than a fortnight that news about unsolicited text messages being stopped broke out and now, they’re back to haunt us again. The numbers aren’t at similar levels but they seem to be increasing everyday.  

TRAI, why you no block?

As per TRAI regulations, telemarketers were blocked from sending SMS’ to those in the ‘fully blocked’ list.  So, what exactly has gone wrong out here? Basically, companies wanting to send commercial messages needed to have a prefix indicating the access provider and location. So, if you wanted messages from a particular category, that prefix would help in access or blocking. But now, the messages do not have any access provider information and that’s what has confused users on how to block or allow the service. Also, a lot of the messages are coming from web SMS services and are routed through the Internet and prohibiting those messages is a difficult task on its own. Besides this, calling services have been on the rise as well. 

As reported by the Times of India, defaulters have to cough up a sum of Rs. 25,000 for the first offence which can rise up to Rs. 2.5 lakh for the sixth offence. This seems like change money for the telemarketers as it has not really deterred them in harassing consumers. The only thing that has worked out is the 100 text message cap on users which, it looks like is targeted more towards the customers than the telemarketers.  

So, while I check the few hundred spam messages I received while writing this article, let us know what you think about this latest loophole in the system.