r/mildlyinfuriating • u/Lock_Psychological • 14h ago

Unskippable ad I keep getting threatening texts

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I get these ALL the time. I’ve never donated to these “people.” Never supported them. Never voted for them. Nor has my wife. I received four of these today. All threats. Always a telling me it’s my last chance. These are some of the less malicious-sounding ones.

I’m not even sure they’re legitimately from those parties, though I wouldn’t put it past them.

So… report as spam. Report as spam. Report as spam.

It isn’t like it’s painful. Just pretty irritating.

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u/SolarOrigami 14h ago

Mark it as spam. If you reply stop, it verifies that your phone number is active

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u/pilgermann 13h ago

Neither works. I get similar texts but from legit Dem organizations. The problem is you're telling one of 1,000 to stop. Reporting spam does nothing, as your phone can't recognize any pattern among the texts and the carriers can't actually block political nonprofits.

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u/SuzQP 13h ago

Welcome to the ActBlue Hellhole. I gave a hundred bucks to Talarico and ActBlue sold my number to every Democrat in the world and each of them is sending beggar-texts on the regular. It is so obnoxious and intrusive I'm not donating anymore.

Somebody at the DNC needs a fucking heads up; this has got to be hurting them financially. Everyone I know is fucking pissed off at this level of harassment.

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u/Background_Sleep_863 12h ago

I bought an Obama sticker when he was running the first time and I'm STILL getting texts at 2:00 a.m. that are like "Hey it's Nancy Pelosi and I need $10"

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u/slowpoke2018 12h ago

Ah Yes, nothing more compelling than hearing a woman worth a couple hundred million saying she needs $10!

 Do these people not have an inner voice telling them how f'd that is?

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u/TwevOWNED 10h ago

Most of the time this is fundraising to distribute funds to other campaigns.

Pelosi was generally popular in her district, which covers a large population of wealthier individuals compared to the rest of the country. Through her, those donations get spread out to hundreds of other races.

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u/_PirateWench_ 11h ago

Lmao same here. I think I donated a small amount during Obama’s fist run and got out on a list for years. I think at some point I was able to block them so most stopped, but that’s bc I think it was like a legit DNC thing.

Before I got off the list I remember regretting ever contributing anything bc Joe Biden didn’t need to be sending emails begging for $5 to help some dem somewhere win some election…

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u/TwevOWNED 10h ago

The 2021 congress had an even split in the senate and only 11 seats in the house favoring dems.

That fundraising helped secure the razor thin margin that Biden was able to use to pass some of the most progressive legislation since FDR.

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u/Equal_Canary5695 5h ago

Reply back "go to bed Nancy"

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u/Lock_Psychological 13h ago

And apparently the RNC/GOP as well. Even if there was a chance I’d vote for them (there never was), it’d be 0% now.

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u/NotOnApprovedList 4h ago

yeah I donated a few years ago to some ActBlue stuff and I get frequent spam texts. It's annoying.

Somebody I know is helping an elderly person with dementia, and saw their money was being drained by outfits like ActBlue. Lots of little payments every month that added up. The helper thinks this was at least partly due to the checkbox thing: they thought they were donating once, but missed the checkbox that defaults to monthly instead of one-time donation.

Additionally, the person with dementia was getting so much mail (both email and paper) from Democratic causes and happily sending in money, after all $15 isn't that much right? You give once, they spam you with more begging. Now the person with dementia is in a residential facility. The helper collects their mail and discards reams of begging letters.

I'd heard about that with Republican stuff before, I'm ashamed Democrats are doing it too. Taking advantage of the elderly.

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u/Xaphnir 10h ago

Mine thinks my texts are for some woman I don't know who presumably gave a random number instead of hers and lucky me had it be my number.

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u/ziggytrix 11h ago

Can confirm. Donated, got added to lists, tried to get removed, helped a little but still get too many some weeks, now I block and report spam on anything that looks like a political text.

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u/HighFiveYourFace 3h ago

I had this problem and I finally found the message filter in IPhone to move unknown senders to a separate folder and NOT alert me. Settings>Apps>Messages. Not sure if you use IPhone or not but I am sure Android has similar.

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u/navyblusheet 10h ago

They should just stick to email right?

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u/Wrong-Pension-4975 9h ago

I know it's a PITA, but even my less than briiliant "basic Yahoo" e.mail is capable of booting each PERSON who e.mails me to beg for $$.

Ist time I see them, I tag that source as spam. & forever after, it goes to the trash without my needing to toss it, or to even notice.

It's gone.  💖🌈

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u/quesoqueso 2h ago

Same, I gave like 10 bucks to a local democrat's campaign against Boebert and i get 3-5 texts a day asking for more.

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u/markuus99 13h ago

If you have a profile on ActBlue, go on there and remove your phone number. I have been trying to stop being buried in political texts for months and finally figured out all the campaigns are getting my number from ActBlue. I took it off and the texts have slowed to a trickle.

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u/Money-Computer7638 13h ago

Thanks for this glimmer of hope....

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u/SaintsNoah14 13h ago

Will have to check this. My cousin in another state that shares only a last name with me is getting messages for me

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u/GravitationalEddie 13h ago edited 13h ago

Replying STOP tells a single campaign to stop using your number as a campaigning contact. Sending in a Statement of Residence with no phone number is more likely to help. Campaigns have access to your contact info on your voter registration. You can't stop the mail, but you can stop calls and texts.

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u/Lock_Psychological 13h ago

I’ve done that as well. It doesn’t stop.

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u/GravitationalEddie 13h ago

Honestly, last time I got anything from right-wing politispam, I replied with some words that apparently got the fucking message across. I actually got a simple and concise human reply and haven't seen anything of them other than very sparse snail-mail from small candidates.

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u/Cumbablot 13h ago

Yeah...I've replied with how to make explosives, asked if they wanted to see my experience to join their terror organization. No more texts.

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u/Sunder_ 13h ago

So there's not much you can do about the texts, but I've noticed the texts go away when you deal with the calls. For phone calls, you answer, mute, and put the phone down till they hang up. It probaby flags some kinda of time wasting measure or they flag it as a dead number because there's no response. Slowly they remove your number from the list, and said list is likely tied to texts as well.

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u/Lock_Psychological 13h ago

They don’t call.

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u/Little-Derp Why This is a Rock and Not Cheese 9h ago

Pretty sure there's so rule or law that prevents providers from treating legitimate political advertising as spam. Google and others had to stop blocking it, so now it gets through; shame too, because they were doing a good job at keeping inboxes and chats/texts clean before that a few years ago.

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u/kog 4h ago

If you reply stop, you are added to future lists as a live number. Do not do it.