Back in the 1970s, the 2 features that turned an ordinary apartment into a ‘luxury apartment’ were a microwave oven in the kitchen and a phone jack in every room. In 1975, a microwave oven cost $500 and weighed almost 100 pounds. They were so big and heavy that when you bought one, you also had to buy a microwave cart to go with it. Cell phones were also very expensive. The only cellphone on the market was the Motorola Dynatac, commonly known as the ‘brick’ or ‘Zack Morris phone.’ It weighed 4 pounds. A Zack Morris phone cost $4,000, and you had to pay 50 cents a minute to make or receive calls. Only rich people had cellphones. Today, nobody cares if an apartment has a phone jack. I can’t remember the last time I had a tenant with a land line. Everybody has a cell phone.

Text Message Fraud. Every day, over 50 million spam text messages are sent to cellphones in the U.S., and most of them are attempted fraud. Cellphone criminals are becoming increasingly sophisticated, and they now have the technology to personalize their spam messages to make them appear to come from people you know and businesses you trust. Here are some things you can do to protect yourself from becoming a victim of cellphone fraud:

1. When you get a spam text message, ignore the instructions on how to prevent receiving future text messages by texting them back. This is a common ploy by crooks to confirm that they have a live, active phone number. Ironically, by instructing a spammer to stop sending you text messages, you will get more of them instead.
2. Forward spam texts to 7726 (SPAM on most keypads.) This will alert your carrier to block future text messages from these numbers.
3. Anti-malware is available for most cellphones; however, installing anti-malware on your cellphone can reduce your battery life, so if you get spam text messages infrequently, this is probably not worthwhile.
4. Never store your credit card numbers, log-in information, or passwords in e-mails or notes on your cellphone.
5. Be suspicious. When you get a text message offering you a free $500 Amazon gift card or an all-expensive paid vacation to Disneyland for $100, you should be hear an alarm bell going off in your head.
6. Remember that banks and other legitimate businesses do not send spam text messages.