The volume of mobile spam messages okprint88 gift premium fair touting free gift cards sharply fell after the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed complaints in early March against eight companies, according to antispam vendor Cloudmark.

The fraudulent messages told users they could get a free gift card for retailers such as Best Buy, Walmart and Target in exchange for people’s personal information.Hong Kong StoriesThe messages are illegal under U.S. law.

The FTC filed eight complaints in various U.S. courts against 29 defendants, accusing them of sending upwards of 180 million messages that confused consumers and often asked them to pay in order to receive the gift cards.

Gift card spam comprised more than 50 percent of all mobile spam messages in the U.S. around Feb. 18, according to Cloudmark’s report,elegantboat premium gifts which covers the first three months of this year. It sharply dropped to less than 10 percent following the FTC’s March 7 announcement.

Those named in the spam investigation are likely “out of the spam business now,” said Andrew Conway, research analyst for Cloudmark.

Gift card spam still took the top spot for aman01 executive gift the most prevalent type of SMS spam for the first quarter of the year due to high volumes in January and February, Cloudmark said. The second most frequent type was payday loan scams, followed by bogus job listings, adult content and bank account phishing schemes.