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Who's behind these scammy text messages we've all been getting?

Search Engine

PJ Vogt

Society & Culture, Business, Technology

4.83.9K Ratings

🗓️ 8 March 2024

⏱️ 71 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Hi David, I’m Vicky Ho. Don’t you remember me? An investigative reporter travels halfway around the world to find out who is sending him random wrong number texts and why. After you hear this story, you'll never look at these messages the same way again. You can grab a copy of Zeke's book, Number Go Up, here. If you want to support Search Engine, head over to pjvogt.com. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hi, my name's David Weeder. My question for search engine is about all of the

0:05.2

ridiculous text messages I get these days. They usually start with some

0:10.4

question about how I'm doing and then when I point out that I don't know that person,

0:15.0

they apologize repeatedly, and then it doesn't go anywhere.

0:19.0

I don't understand if it's a scam, maybe I don't have the patients to get to the part where they ask for money.

0:25.0

Maybe it's some sort of AI learning.

0:28.0

I recently got one of these that was entirely in Chinese.

0:31.0

I ran it through Google Translate. It was the same thing. And then I got one that was so silly this week that I thought I would send it to you guys at the search engine. It says, want a second?

0:44.0

Hello, Linda. I was introduced by Alan. Can you modify the interior of Maserati?

0:51.0

I just don't get it. Can a robot come up with something less stupid to say? So hopefully

0:58.8

you guys want to take a look at this for me. Thanks. Bye.

1:06.0

That was a voice message we got from listener David Weeder. Thank you, David.

1:08.0

Today we will answer the question,

1:10.0

can you modify the interior of Maserati?

1:13.0

Not really.

1:15.0

Today's episode is about the answer to David's actual question.

1:18.0

Who is behind these wrong number text messages?

1:21.0

That question will send a reporter across the world to get to the

1:24.8

bottom of this. I promise by the time we were done you will never look at these

1:29.6

messages the same way again.

1:37.0

For brands in the digital age, content is the customer experience. That's why industry leaders like KFC,

1:40.0

male chimp, and BMW rely on the contentful composable content platform to easily create,

...

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