Users Receive Spam Messages from their Own Number, Verizon Confirms

The Verizon store in Superior, Colorado, US, July 27, 2017. REUTERS/Rick Wilking
The Verizon store in Superior, Colorado, US, July 27, 2017. REUTERS/Rick Wilking
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Users Receive Spam Messages from their Own Number, Verizon Confirms

The Verizon store in Superior, Colorado, US, July 27, 2017. REUTERS/Rick Wilking
The Verizon store in Superior, Colorado, US, July 27, 2017. REUTERS/Rick Wilking

The wireless carrier Verizon blamed “bad actors” for thousands of spam text messages recently received by its customers and said it was working with federal law enforcement agencies to try to identify the source.

The telecom giant confirmed in a statement on Wednesday that its customers had been targeted by the ‘rogue texts’ offering them a gift.

Some users had reported being forwarded to Russian state media sites when they clicked on links in the texts, but Verizon was treating the texts as a more typical phishing scheme aimed at defrauding consumers.

“As part of a recent fraud scheme, bad actors have been sending text messages to some Verizon customers which appear to come from the customers’ own number,” the statement said. “Our company has significantly curtailed this current activity, but virtually all wireless providers have faced similar fraudulent activity in recent months.”

The scheme highlighted a steady rise in the number of complaints filed with the federal government by consumers who said that they were the victims of spam text messages. Verizon spokesman Rich Young told The New York Times that Verizon had blocked one of the numbers that sent some of the messages, but that the source was continuing to use other numbers to spam customers.

There was no indication, Mr. Young said, that the messages came from Russia, which has become suspected of carrying out cyberattacks amid that country’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

Security experts generally advise against clicking on links sent from strange or unrecognized accounts. The intent of the fraudulent solicitations is to get people to enter their credit card information, Young said. The F.B.I. declined to comment on Wednesday, as did the Secret Service, while T-Mobile said that it had found no evidence of its customers receiving the text messages.

In 2021, the Federal Trade Commission said that it received 377,840 reports of fraud stemming from text message solicitations, with losses totaling $131 million.



Trump Extends Deadline for TikTok Sale by 90 Days

FILE PHOTO: A TikTok logo is displayed on a smartphone in this illustration taken January 6, 2020. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A TikTok logo is displayed on a smartphone in this illustration taken January 6, 2020. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
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Trump Extends Deadline for TikTok Sale by 90 Days

FILE PHOTO: A TikTok logo is displayed on a smartphone in this illustration taken January 6, 2020. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A TikTok logo is displayed on a smartphone in this illustration taken January 6, 2020. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

President Donald Trump announced Thursday he had given social media platform TikTok another 90 days to find a non-Chinese buyer or be banned in the United States.

"I've just signed the Executive Order extending the Deadline for the TikTok closing for 90 days (September 17, 2025)," Trump posted on his Truth Social platform, putting off the ban for the third time.

A federal law requiring TikTok's sale or ban on national security grounds was due to take effect the day before Trump's January inauguration.

The Republican, whose 2024 election campaign relied heavily on social media, has previously said he is fond of the video-sharing app.

"I have a little warm spot in my heart for TikTok," Trump said in an NBC News interview in early May. "If it needs an extension, I would be willing to give it an extension."

TikTok on Thursday welcomed Trump's decision.

"We are grateful for President Trump's leadership and support in ensuring that TikTok continues to be available for more than 170 million American users," the platform said in a statement.

Digital Cold War?

Motivated by a belief in Washington that TikTok is controlled by the Chinese government, the ban took effect on January 19, one day before Trump's inauguration, with ByteDance having made no attempt to find a suitor.

TikTok "has become a symbol of the US-China tech rivalry; a flashpoint in the new Cold War for digital control," said Shweta Singh, an assistant professor of information systems at Warwick Business School in Britain.

Trump had long supported a ban or divestment, but reversed his position and vowed to defend the platform -- which boasts almost two billion global users -- after coming to believe it helped him win young voters' support in the November election.

The president announced an initial 75-day delay of the ban upon taking office. A second extension pushed the deadline to June 19.

He said in May that a group of purchasers was ready to pay TikTok owner ByteDance "a lot of money" for the video-clip-sharing sensation's US operations.

Trump knows that TikTok is "wildly popular" in the United States, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday, when asked about the latest extension.

"He also wants to protect Americans' data and privacy concerns on this app, and he believes we can do both things at the same time."

The president is "just not motivated to do anything about TikTok," said independent analyst Rob Enderle. "Unless they get on his bad side, TikTok is probably going to be in pretty good shape."

Tariff turmoil

Trump said in April that China would have agreed to a deal on the sale of TikTok if it were not for a dispute over his tariffs on Beijing.

ByteDance has confirmed talks with the US government, saying key matters needed to be resolved and that any deal would be "subject to approval under Chinese law."

Possible solutions reportedly include seeing existing US investors in ByteDance roll over their stakes into a new independent global TikTok company.

Additional US investors, including Oracle and private equity firm Blackstone, would be brought on to reduce ByteDance's share in the new TikTok.

Much of TikTok's US activity is already housed on Oracle servers, and the company's chairman, Larry Ellison, is a longtime Trump ally.

Uncertainty remains, particularly over what would happen to TikTok's valuable algorithm.

"TikTok without its algorithm is like Harry Potter without his wand -- it's simply not as powerful," said Kelsey Chickering, principal analyst at Forrester.

Despite the turmoil, TikTok has been continuing with business as usual.

The platform on Monday introduced a new "Symphony" suite of generative artificial intelligence tools for advertisers to turn words or photos into video snippets for the platform.