My Samsung S4 appears hacked. What do I do?

[AC Question]

my samsung g4 appears hacked. What do I do

Today I get texts from people I don't know from different area codes telling me to stop spamming them with texts. I only got texts from 5 people within a span of 20 minutes, but they kept texting back later, so I know they each got multiple texts. I was told they were for marijuana and another was for debit cards. There is nothing in my outgoing texts logs.

I have a Samsung Galaxy 4 and my carrier is Verizon.

I haven't downloaded any apps lately and don't use public wifi. All of my apps are well known and came from secure sources. If I caused this to happen, it would think it had to be through my browser.

Now here is the insane part with a capital I. I have 2 vacation rental apartments and we have ads with companies and their apps stay signed in, so i want to make sure no one got into my account and is scamming potential customers to send them $$.

I call one company and there are no problems with anyone in my account. I call the second and I am going through the phone menu choices 1. for billing , etc

All of a sudden, a voice says "blah, blah, blah". That's it, nothing else. Now I am paranoid with a capital P. Normally I would think this was some other call bleeding through, but after the texts, I don't think so.

No, I am not crazy or losing it.

So can someone control your phone like this? I have zero tech skills. What do I do about it? Hard Reset (just looked that up)? new phone? What else should I do to protect myself? I uninstalled all apps that have anything to do with money. I can't exit gmail, should I delete it?

I installed AVG and it found nothing.

Ideas? I am freaking.

 

[belodion]

Re: my samsung g4 appears hacked. What do I do

Welcome to AC.

First, try Safe Mode. Tell us what effect that has.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[Bob Oncle]

Re: my samsung g4 appears hacked. What do I do

No one is complaining that I am getting texts and I can't tell if I am hacked. What will safe mode do?
How will I know if anything changes?

 

[belodion]

Re: my samsung g4 appears hacked. What do I do

Welcome as a new member.

Safe Mode temporarily disables third-party apps. If your phone has in fact been hacked, the problems you are experiencing should stop while you are in Safe Mode. Of course you can hardly stay in that mode forever, but it's a useful diagnostic.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[Bob Oncle]

Re: my samsung g4 appears hacked. What do I do

Thanks for the suggestion. I will keep safe mode in mind. I don't know what it would do to help me in this situation as the phone hasn't done anything since yesterday but act normal. But since someone spoke over my phone call, I am not taking chances. I am replacing the phone. I do too much business from my phone to take a chance. The texts that were supposedly coming from me stopped. I would have wrote this off as someone spoofing my number if I hadn't heard that voice over my call. If they had control of my phone as it seems, why didn't they spam my contacts or do anything else? All I can figure is that they realized I wasn't going to give them anything they could use to make money and did that for the fun of scaring and taunting me and to brag about what they'd done. At this point, replacing that phone is the only thing that makes sense to me. For $100, I'll sleep better.