I only learned this quite recently, but I have started doing it conscientiously – having previously worked at Facebook I know that one of the most important things that someone can do with spam and fraudulent content is to report it, but I had no idea that this could also work for SMS messages.

The steps are simple:

1. (optional) Add the phone number 7726 as “Report SMS Spam Abuse”, or some other useful contact-name; this tends to make it easier to make reports in future
2. Forward the SMS spam text message, unmodified and verbatim, to 7726
3. Await a response; they will generally send you a response SMS to thank you, and to ask you to send a followup text message with the phone number which was the source of the SMS
4. Copy-Paste, or simply type-out, the spammer’s phone number, and send that to 7726 also
5. Job Done! Eat a jelly-bean or something, to celebrate.

…and I have been doing it, and it’s easy, and hopefully effective; and I also believe that it’s free.

Just in case you want to corroborate that this works, is worthwhile, and that I am not lying, here are some sources:

• UK: https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/advice/how-to-deal-with-spam-text-messages
• UK: https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/guidance/suspicious-email-actions
• US: https://lifehacker.com/forward-spam-text-messages-to-7726-to-report-them-1257920045
• US: https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/2014/02/random-text-wait-wait-dont-click

Do let me know how you get on in the comments, and have fun stopping bad people.