Methods and systems for preventing short message service (SMS) message flooding

A method for collecting information that can be used to prevent a calling party who has previously flooded a called party with SMS messages from flooding another subscriber or the network again, the method comprising:

• (a) at a network element, detecting that a calling party identified in a received SMS message is flooding a called party with SMS messages and, in response, entering information for identifying the calling party in a message flood control (MFC) database;
• (b) in response to detecting that the calling party is flooding the called party, checking the MFC database to determine whether the calling party has previously flooded any subscriber identified in the MFC database;
• and
• (c) in response to locating a matching entry in the MFC database, sending a message to a third party indicating that the calling party is a repeat offender.

An SMS flood control routing node comprising:

• (a) a first communication module for receiving SMS messages from a network;
• (b) an SMS message flood control (MFC) database for storing information for preventing SMS message flooding;
• and
• (c) an SMS flood control module for receiving the SMS messages from the first communication module for performing a lookup in the SMS MFC database based on information extracted from the SMS messages and detecting the presence of SMS message flooding.