Warm texts: Friendly messages sent by ‘mistake’ WANT you to reply

Have you ever received what seemed like a random text, or one intended for someone else? Something like:

“Are we still on for lunch tomorrow?”
or
“Let me know when Steve gets home so I can drop this off.”

Maybe you think the text was sent by mistake and, because you’re a nice person, you reply to let them know.

Most likely, the text wasn’t a mistake and the sender was really hoping you’d reply.

Scammers know that robotext-detecting software is getting better – both the software used by phone companies and the software consumers may subscribe to. We have good motivation to turn to software, given estimates that we get more than 19 billion unwanted texts every month. Unsurprisingly, most are scam or spam texts.

Robotext software can often detect scam texts and then block them, filter them or flag them. One of the ways that software detects unwanted texts: If the number has sent tons of texts before and none of the recipients has ever responded, the texts might be spam. 

How does a con artist fight back? Get people to reply to the texts, of course. 

So if you or I get a seemingly errant, innocent text and we reply to let the sender know they reached the wrong person, that’s a point for them. Lots of points signal they’re OK, they’re not a bad guy. Building that track record of replies helps legitimize the sender’s number and makes it seem it’s sending “warm” texts that are wanted. And future texts are more likely to get through unblocked.

If you get a text that says: “Hey Frank. I’m running late. Can you pick Jack up from baseball practice too? Thanks,” you should not respond and say you’re not Frank. You should not respond at all.

Or say you get a text that says: “Did you hear from Emily yet?” then don’t reply and ask who’s Emily?

Every person who responds to one of these seemingly innocuous texts is warming that number and making it less likely that software will block future texts from that number.

What should you do?

• You should not automatically reply to an unexpected text, especially if it makes no sense to you or is asking a question that’s not relevant. If it’s coming from a phone number, you could look into whether it’s someone you know who just isn’t in your contacts. Or you could ignore it.
• Never click on links in a text you weren’t expecting, no matter who the sender claims to be. This could download a virus onto your phone or computer, such as the virus that allowed logins and passwords to be stolen on 184 million accounts.
• Never provide personal or financial information to a text that is unexpected, even if you know the sender or you recognize the phone number. Verify the request another way: By logging into your account, by directly calling the relative or friend who supposedly needs money, by calling the customer service number on your bank card or statement, etc.
• If you’re confident the text is spam or a scam, report it to your carrier. On iPhones, you can swipe left on the message without opening it and tap “Delete and Report Junk” to delete it, report it and block it all in one step. On Android phones, the process varies depending on the app you’re using. In many cases, you can use the “Block & Report Spam” feature on your messaging app.

If you’ve already opened the message on any type of phone, you can forward it to your carrier at 7726 (SPAM.)

Other tips:

• If you regularly get texts you want from your pharmacy or your bank or your doctor, add them as a named contact on your phone. That will help you spot imposters.
• If a text is urging you to act immediately, don’t do it. Scammers trick us by causing us to think we have to do something right now — pay a debt, buy gift cards, stop fraud — or else bad things will happen. Scammers hope people won’t take a moment to think through the request.
• If the text appears to be from an email address instead of a phone number or five- or six-digit sender, it’s more likely to be a scam.
• If you get a text message from an entity that you never agreed to get texts from, the message is almost surely an attempt to defraud you. Entities that send robotexts are required to get upfront consent before sending any messages.

The Federal Communications Commission has taken steps to reduce unwanted text messages in the last few years, but not nearly enough. FCC rules approved in 2023 require cellular providers to block texts from numbers that seem to be from invalid, unallocated or unused numbers. In our Who’s Calling? report released in February 2025, we found that only 10 out of 24 of the largest phone companies nationwide block these texts by default. A few of the companies offer only landlines/VoIP lines and don’t offer texting, but most do.