I occasionally hear from people who have received text messages from non-existent email addresses like mary@haneberg.com, usually advertising questionable products like herbal supplements or discount prescription drugs.

These are occurrences of something known as SMS spoofing or text message spoofing, in which senders who want to hide their identities steal  the names of legitimate web sites. It is the text message equivalent of spam email. Unfortunately, once an internet domain name is established it is impossible to prevent people from hijacking the name and pretending that it is the source of text or email messages.

The only authentic email address at haneberg.com is mine (bill@haneberg.com) and I do not send text messages. If you receive a text message that appears to come from anyone at haneberg.com, you can be certain that it is a fake. Please do not follow any links or purchase any products from anyone employing this dishonest technique.

Thank you for your patience,

Bill Haneberg