How to ditch SMS?

I’m sick of all the spam email I get and now SMS spam on top of that. Maybe I get one legitimate SMS message per half dozen spam/scam ones so I’ve gotten to the point where I’d rather just not have this service. I have cell service through Chunghua Telecom so I called them up to ask for SMS service to be disabled. The answer there was no, though noone knew (or would say) why they couldn’t do that. Then I started looking for phones that can toggle SMS service on or off. Again nothing. All the phones I found are either set up so that SMS cannot be switched off, or the vendors simply have no idea if this feature exists or not.

So, what I want to know is whether there are any cell service providers that can switch off SMS at the source, or any cell phones on the market that allow messages to be rejected.

:help:

What phone have you got? This information is important.

I might know a workaround.

in some phones there is a “Message Center” setting. I wonder if screwing with this would stop all SMS coming in.

Yeah, that’s what my workaround was going to be, lol.

It would hardly be in CHT’s interest to kill their golden egg laying SMS service. Altering the message service number may just screw with your outgoing messages.

And that’s what I’m worried about.

[quote=“Lord Lucan”]It would hardly be in CHT’s interest to kill their golden egg laying SMS service.[/quote]Yes, they seemed quite shocked that I suggested turning it off. I did at least manage to stop them from spamming me with their own advertising, though it took a dozen calls to ever more senior people and finally the threat of violence to accomplish that minor improvement in service. This is precisely why Hinet’s IP block gets blacklisted frequently and users cannot get their legitimate mail to users on domains that use that blacklist. Greed and short-sightedness. :unamused:

[quote=“Lord Lucan”]Altering the message service number may just screw with your outgoing messages.[/quote]I could live with that if the bloody spam would stop. I’m usually too lazy to use SMS anyway.

I’m currently using a Sony-Ericsson T630.

[quote=“redwagon”][quote=“Lord Lucan”]It would hardly be in CHT’s interest to kill their golden egg laying SMS service.[/quote]Yes, they seemed quite shocked that I suggested turning it off. I did at least manage to stop them from spamming me with their own advertising, though it took a dozen calls to ever more senior people and finally the threat of violence to accomplish that minor improvement in service. This is precisely why Hinet’s IP block gets blacklisted frequently and users cannot get their legitimate mail to users on domains that use that blacklist. Greed and short-sightedness. :unamused:

[quote=“Lord Lucan”]Altering the message service number may just screw with your outgoing messages.[/quote]I could live with that if the bloody spam would stop. I’m usually too lazy to use SMS anyway.

I’m currently using a Sony-Ericsson T630.[/quote]

I think what LL is trying to say is that it might ONLY bugger up outgoing messages, not incoming ones.

Anyway (at your own risk. I recommend you write down anything you delete):
Menu>Messaging>Text>Options>Service Centres>New Number (type some rubbish number that you are sure will not cost you, or get you in trouble)>OK. Now highlight the new number and choose Select.

Do let us know what happens.

How about this for thinking outside the box.
Set incoing messages alert to silent and turn off vibrate.

Let the inbox fill up andnever empty it. Hey presto problem solved.

[quote=“Edgar Allen”]How about this for thinking outside the box.
Set incoing messages alert to silent and turn off vibrate.

Let the inbox fill up andnever empty it. Hey presto problem solved.[/quote]

Good idea, but the T630 displays a message for each SMS that you have, to accept or reject, which is a pain. If you don’t mind that though…

[quote=“Edgar Allen”]How about this for thinking outside the box.
Set incoing messages alert to silent and turn off vibrate.

Let the inbox fill up andnever empty it. Hey presto problem solved.[/quote]

Yeah that’s what I do. Then every so often a real person sends me a message and buggers up my perfect system. :laughing:

But if you turned it off you just wouldn’t get their message. Pretend it is turned off and hey presto problem solved. Its that whole philosophy thing about trees falling in the jungle. I mean if you don’t know you have received a message have you received it?

Irishstu, would you send me a message to see if the ‘wrong’ service center number trick works?

I don’t want to let the inbox fill up since (unless I’m mistaken) it swallows valuable memory resources and (as Irishstu mentions) the stupid popup will still be there to announce the arrival of fresh new spam. That pisses me off almost as much as having to read it!

Nooo. It doesn’t work. Still have Spam Message Syndrome. :frowning:

What you need is a “kosher cell phone.” No, this is not a joke:

Kosher’ cell phone rings up growth
Temptation-free mobile drawing attention — even from some Arab firms
[i]
JERUSALEM - It sounds like the setup for a punch line: What do you get when you cross an ultra-Orthodox rabbi with a mobile phone?

But the “kosher phone” is real and its developers are serious about looking beyond the religious enclaves of Israel. Some Arab companies even have inquired about the phone’s main feature: keeping out sex lines and other worldly temptations.

“There’s interest out there in a conservative phone,” said Abrasha Burstyn, the chief executive officer at Mirs Communications Ltd., an Israeli subsidiary of Motorola Inc. and pioneer of the kosher mobile that debuted last year.

The phones — carrying the seal of approval from Israel’s rabbinical authorities — have been one of the most successful mergers of technology and centuries-old tradition in the ultra-Orthodox community, which is most widely recognized by the men’s black garb based on the dress of 19th century European Jews.

The kosher phone is stripped down to its original function: making and receiving calls. There’s no text messaging, no Internet access, no video options, no camera. More than 10,000 numbers for phone sex, dating services and other offerings are blocked. A team of rabbinical overseers makes sure the list is up to date.[/i]

Read the rest of the article:
msnbc.msn.com/id/12082960/

Not sure where you’d buy one in Taiwan though. Muslim countries may have them. Maybe you could pick one up on a holiday to Malaysia or someplace (or maybe not).

cheers,
DB

Damn, yeah the mod you just did probably only stops you from sending messages, not the other way around. In that case I’m really not sure there is anything you can do. Sorry.

I’m reminded of that guy in Diamond Age who gets optical implants that spamvertise him with Hindi movie trailers 24hrs a day until he kills himself.

I saw a bit of software for a smartphone that can intelligently block SMS messages from all or just selected users, but I don’t want to buy a PDA phone just so I can switch SMS off. Seems like overkill to buy a phone with a computer in it just to block messages when it would be so damn easy to have a switch in the phone firmware to do this!

Well well well, it just goes to show that a different approach can indeed produce different results. I had the wife call CHT and tell them she was getting sick of the amount of SMS spam on FET (a lie) and that she would switch to CHT if they could block messages. Bingo. CHT replied that they have an option to allow outgoing messages while blocking incoming. We’ll find out tomorrow if that is really the case or if it’s just bs from the sales department.

The message center number is for sending messages only. Jamming your inbox doesn’t help if you still want to receive SMS from family and friends, otherwise you could probably just ask the operator (their customer service center) to disable the SMS function.

However, supposingly threatening to change the service provider might help, at least for spam from invalid numbers (I get quite a few of those).

I’m so sick of spam I’m willing to give up messaging altogether. At 90% spam/scam it’s just a waste of time. If someone wants me badly enough they can call. CHT had two options, one to disable SMS altogether, the other to just disable the inbox.