Mysterious text messages are showing up on cell phones everywhere. It's a new form of spam and it's costing all of us money.

Most of the mysterious text messages are sent by con artists hoping you’ll fall for their latest scheme to get your money.

“People are mad because they’re paying 15 cents each time they get or send a text. They don’t want to pay for something they don’t want to read,” said cell phone researcher Wynde Dyer

The text spam problem is really on the rise here in the state of Oregon and state officials are worried about it.

“If your unfamiliar with what they're doing, then you're going to get scammed, said Jan Margosian with the consumer protection section of the Oregon Department of Justice.

She says text messaging is a new frontier for con artists. The scammers hope their texted lies about being from the IRS or your credit card company will scare you into turning over personal information.

“It’s illegal both federally and state”, said Margosian. Wayne Havrelly asked, “It may be illegal but is there anything we can do to stop it?”

“I absolutely don't know if we have anything right now that will stop it. I don’t think so, truly our laws cannot keep up with technology,” said Margosian.

Wynde Dyer has been researching the text message movement for a class she’s designed at Portland State University.

According to Dyer much of text spam is from illicit services and that’s creating ugly situations between couples.

“What's happening is people are finding these dating services and pornography spam and attributing that to their partner’s devious actions. It’s just spam, but how do you explain that, said Dyer.

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E-mail spam on the other hand, has become so commonplace most of us just ignore it.

Spam filtering software now controls most of it in your e-mail, but there are no filters for cell phone spam.

“I think it's going to be a technological fix as opposed to a law enforcement fix,” said Margosian.

Link: Oregon Attorney general

Link: FCC guidelines

There are some things you can do to reduce text spam. Protect your cell phone number and be wary of posting it anywhere on the Internet.

Also, when you receive text spam, don't ignore it.

Complain to your cell phone company. Ask them to remove charges for any unsolicited text messages.

Even state officials want you to file formal complaints so they can get a better handle on the situation.

Also, never respond to any mysterious text message. If you do expect to get even more messages and if you don’t have an unlimited text messaging plan, that will cost you money.