Spam Texting

 Text message spam promising free iPads or cash rewards may be obnoxious and unwanted, but they also carry a greater danger: clicking on texts can install malware that collects personal data from your phone. They're also booming faster than any other sector of the tech industry. Spam text messages in the U.S. increased 45% in 2011 to an incredible 4.5 billion messages, Richi Jennings, an industry analyst and expert in spam, told Bloomberg.

Responding to such messages can, in many cases, also add significant charges to your phone bill. Generally, spam texts are sent using a prepaid phone card which costs about $20 a month and can send messages to millions of people. This is costing the carriers and the people receiving the texts much more than the senders, especially if the receiver doesn't have unlimited an unlimited texting plan.