If it seems like your phone has been blowing up lately with random numbers or suspicious texts, you’re not alone. Over the past few weeks, several students at Wayne State College have said they’ve been getting more spam calls and messages than usual. Whether it’s fake warnings about unpaid bills or persistent unknown numbers, the problem has started to feel impossible to ignore for many on campus.
Spam calls and texts have always been a nuisance, but lately, students say they’ve noticed a sharp increase. “Actually, yeah, now that I think about it, I have been getting a lot of spam texts,” said business major Ben Tuttle. “I’ve gotten some saying about tolls that I haven’t paid and that I need to pay them before the IRS comes knocking at my door. I’ve also gotten some from what claims to be the Nebraska Department of Motor Vehicles saying I need to pay something for my car. As for calls though, I haven’t really gotten a lot of spam calls.”
These kinds of scams have become more common across the country, with fraudsters pretending to be government agencies, businesses or delivery services in an effort to get people to click suspicious links or share personal information. While some students are mostly dealing with text messages, others are noticing an increase in phone calls instead.
“I haven’t gotten any spam texts,” said accounting major Kyle Witt. “But I’ve gotten a lot of spam calls in the past couple of days. I never answer them, but they just keep calling, and it’s more annoying than anything because you block one and another pops up. It’s just an endless cycle. Whoever is behind all of this has no life whatsoever.”
Not every student has experienced the increase firsthand, but many have still heard about it happening to others. “I personally haven’t gotten any,” said construction management major Khyler Shortridge. “But I’ve heard a lot of people around campus have gotten a lot of spam calls.”
These reports aren’t unique to Wayne. Spam scams are becoming more common nationwide, and many of them are getting trickier to spot. Some come from numbers that look local or pretend to be from trusted agencies. Others use text messages with links that look official but lead to dangerous websites.
Experts recommend never clicking suspicious links, never sharing personal information with unknown numbers and using your phone’s blocking or spam reporting features to reduce the number of unwanted calls and messages. It may not solve the problem entirely, but it can help slow down the flood.
Whether it’s through text or calls, the rise in spam messages is becoming a shared frustration among students. Some ignore them, some block them, but everyone agrees it’s annoying. And with how persistent the scammers are, it seems like this is a problem that won’t be going away anytime soon.
