A four digit number all telcos can use, 7226 is a resource you can send your scams to, and it’s one Telstra will be learning from.
Try as we might prevent scams from coming in, they keep on happening.
Every day, we get at least one, and if you’re unluckier than most, you might get two, three, five, or ten.
The problem is some scams work, and as long as they make money, scammers will keep doing it.
But the next time you get an obvious SMS scam, or even one that’s not so obvious, you might want to consider forwarding it to people who can do something about it, as telcos switch on to learning from what the public sees.
Telstra is doing just that with the launch of 7226, a national phone number set up with ACMA to report suspicious text messages and MMS to, which will send the message to a database to identify and track common scam patterns.
The number actually means “scam” — 7226 represents SCAM on a keypad — and messages sent to this number won’t be charged for sending the message, Telstra says, at least if you’re a customer using a Telstra-based service.
A representative for the telco confirmed that 7226 works on all telcos and smaller operators (MVNOs) who use the Telstra network, including the likes of Belong, Mate, and Woolworths, to name a few, and that it could also work for other telcos, such as Optus and Vodafone, but that it’s a voluntary number. That essentially means customers on other networks could send their scams to 7226, but that their message mightn’t be used to prevent scams on their own network, at least not yet.
For Telstra, scam reports will be used to train the scam blocking technology already employed by its Cleaner Pipes initiative, filtering and blocking more scams in the process.
