I also received one of these messages with the crook spelling and all on my iPhone a couple of days ago.
I certainly did not open the link. It came from an Australian number - 61 431 678 245. I’m not likely to call it just to find out who it is either.
Does anybody else have a sender number?
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These will be real Australian mobile numbers of past scam victims.
Information available indicates that the send number will most likely be a person who has inadvertently installed the malware on their smart phone. The malware is able to send text messages from infected phones to other (random) mobile numbers, so they may also potentially get infected and to keep infection going. The malware also collects personal information from infected phones and sends it by text message to the scammers.
It is highly likely the owner of the phone number doesn’t know their phone is infected and sending out texts to continue the spreading of the malware.
I wouldn’t be texting back to the number on the scam text message, just in case the malware also harvests phone numbers as valid numbers. This may mean your phone could have a higher risk of receiving spam/scammed texts in the future.
It might be worthwhile contacting your mobile provider or the government’s Scamwatch hoping they follow up the infected phone owner to assist the phone’s owner in shuting down further text messages being sent.
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Yes I am using an iPhone, is that really the case with this scam? If so then thank you.
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I had one from some place and when calling back the line was dead or no return call. Its amazing they left a voice message but no return call. Scammers about
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@frankocotzo do have a look
at the one-box above (exchange.telstra.com.au)
for a complete explanation of the recent text scams.
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Thanks for your help but I’m still too scared to click on the link. I think I’ll just keep deleting them.
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Thanks. I had forgotten that I have previously received some texts from DHL and Australia Post. I did click on them as I was expecting some parcels but when it said I needed to pay a certain amount of money I knew it was wrong and deleted it immediately.
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Sorry, is this a Telstra website?
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Yeez you are getting hit by lots of scammers. The parcel delivery ones too. An oldie but a goody.
Just don’t click the links on those SMS messages and stay safe, no matter how real they look. 
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Delete, delete, delete. keep it simple.
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Yes, @Mare60, it’s the latest consumer news about cyber security from Telstra. Gives suggestions on what to do. Says they are working to address this scam. It’s dated 12 August ‘21.
You’re doing well not to open any links.
Just delete, they’ll have nowhere to go.
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I really hope things improve. Our voice & text phone system is so broken from a scam/spam point of view it is laughable. It is more perilous than email ever was; certainly more-so than the email spam days of say the early 2000/s. Email spam/scam filtering IMO is not perfect but far superior to the more or less completely defenceless voice & text systems.
In any case on topic - yes “new” to me as we have received a couple of this type of thing for the first time in this format recently. I feel for the less savvy/learned. Was a dead giveaway for me on multiple fronts: if we get a voicemail related text for our provider it is a text easily identifiable as from our provider; not some random unknown mobile number; our service doesn’t include any sort of web enabled voice mail so a link to anything is an alarm bell in itself.
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Dear all, at the suggestion from Gaby I used the reporting form on the Telstra website to report this scam. I was pleasantly surprised to receive a response within a few hours that said they’re aware of the problem and are working on it. I would suggest that anyone who has this problem do the same thing so that Telstra gets more information. As you have all said, they’re other suggestion was to DELETE IT BEFORE OPENING. Thanks everyone for sharing your thoughts and help. I’m truly grateful.
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There are definitely problems there but remember the fundamental point: Clicking on a malicious link is only a problem if there is a vulnerability in the underlying operating system that the malicious web site can exploit. That is down to Apple and Google.
So while it might be nice if there were SMS anti-spam on the phone or in the network or both, and it might be nice if some of the weaknesses of the SMS system got tidied up, that is all the secondary problem.
Also, even after so many decades, anti-spam with email is a frickin nightmare of false positives. So would I hand-on-heart ask for SMS anti-spam in the network? Probably NOT.
One of the justifications for having anti-spam for email in the network is that emails can be big and so it is more efficient dropping it in the network (on the receiving side, so it is never stored in the receiving network and may not even be fully received). That logic doesn’t apply to SMSs.
So I’m happy if Apple and Google give us anti-spam for SMS in the phone, and users can make the choice whether to disable anti-spam completely or to enable it and if so can adjust parameters if they see fit. Anti-spam in the phone means you will never lose an SMS. It just might be filed somewhere on your phone as “spam”.
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Definitely a scam. If you open the link, it leads you to an automatic download of Malware. Delete all such messages on phone or email (or Facebook or wherever they turn up next) without opening or linking.
For Reference: the government runs a website called Scamwatch;
https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/
where all such things can be looked up.
And as a sad little addendum;
These sorts of malware scams used to be done by a live operator in some 3rd world country; (I had one once and went and checked scamwatch.gov.au); what you’re getting is an automated message. Even scammers are getting downsized/unemployed by technology.
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I’m currently getting 2 or 3 a day - just block and delete. They are a nuisance, but I don’t know how yo can stop these scammers! Bob4
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Forward each text to Apple or Google, whichever is applicable. 
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I have received quite a number of these messages and all of them have “.php?” in the link, which to me is a red flag. Php is a common abbreviation for Philippine websites. This does not necessarily mean that these originate in the Philippines, they may just be using a .php address but it would be helpful to know if this is a common denominator for the spam others are receiving as well.
Php is a language commonly used in Web scripting, so that is what you would be seeing, not that the domain is Phillipines, which is .ph
‘.php?’ indicates that a file with the extension for the PHP scripting language be executed and what comes after the question mark are parameters.
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Great article on ACT News online about telephone scamming: https://www.abc.net.au/everyday/protecting-yourself-from-phone-porting-and-sim-card-scams/100421586
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