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Verizon Apologizes For Bogus Emergency Text Message Sent To NJ Residents

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Android phone. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Android phone. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

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TRENTON, N.J. (CBSNewYork) — Verizon has issued an apology after sending out an alarming text message to New Jersey residents.

State police said the bogus text urging people to “take shelter before 1:24 p.m.” was sent out at 12:26 p.m. Monday to residents in Middlesex, Monmouth, Morris and Ocean counties.

Monmouth County Sheriff Shaun Golden said the message was marked as an “extreme alert” stating there was a “civil emergency” in the area.

“We did see quite a spike in 911 calls going into our sheriff’s office communication center,” Golden told 1010 WINS.

Verizon said the alert was supposed to say “test message.” Residents have been told to ignore the alert.

“This test message was not clearly identified as a test,” the company said in a statement. “We apologize for any inconvenience or concern this message may have caused.”

Homeland Security immediately put out word on Twitter that there was no civil emergency.

Incidentally, click on this link for information about free CBSNewYork.com text alerts. We put the news right in the palm of your hand.

Did you get the alert? Let us know below…

View Comments
  • sheena

    Thanks Tom! i gave myself a pat on the back for that one. :)

  • Joe

    Verizon should Apologize to it’s workers for treating them like crap after they earned billions in profits for them installing FIOS.

  • jerseyjoey

    Verizon sucks, boycott the arogant pigs they are and save your money.

  • dkp

    I don’t reside in NJ, but was visiting when in the middle of texting I received the message while in Monmouth county today.

  • len

    this folks, is what you call a ‘test run.’ you think only stalin was capable of a false flag?

  • Johh Galt

    A failed test message, or trial balloons by the current gestapo administration? Hopefully they’re lead balloons.

  • Mary Tyler Moore

    Some mistake. What a crock. You know how much effort it takes to get the Verizon server to send this? I smell shenanigans.

  • Tom Menino

    Expect a non-test version of this somewhere around mid-November 2012 when Obama and the Liberal Fascist machine realize he is not going to win. Much more effective than putting baseball-bat wielding Black Panthers in the doorways of polling stations like he did in 2008.

    • jerseyjoey

      What the hell is a liberal Fascist, lol Well never the less both liberals and fascist are running our Country now, the liberals are in the White House and the fascists are the Corporations.

  • Jofus

    Orson Welles is alive and well and works for Verizon!

    • Marion Mills

      That’s funny! 8)

    • chuck

      I thought Welles’ War of the Worlds, too. Why is it always New Jersey?

  • Regrettable Votes

    Why didn’t Verizon send this alert prior to the 2nd Tuesday in November of 2008?

  • Mark Langley

    There are no accidents like this. Testing reactions no doubt.

  • hazel Burke

    Another small dry run. Oh and the Senate today is debating the internet kill switch.

  • joe

    just a test to get us ready for the civil unrest and martial law the will be ordered right before the elections next year. All part of the plan!

  • Jim

    what kind of loser follows tweats from DHS? I mean, I’ve friended them on facebook and they are on my linkedin and I guess I subscribe to there youtube channel and all, but there has to be a limit to number of retarded social media areas I need to follow to find out how much duct tape I need to buy and what level of extremely high alert the nation is currently on. Bad enough I have to watch the see something say something adds where the white guy is the taxi bomber. How insane is that…the only place I’ve seen a white guy drive a taxi is in Europe.

    • Steven

      what kind of loser friends DHS on facebook and linkedin and subscribes to DHS youtube channel and all.

      • Brett

        Steven

        A sarcastic one, genius.

        • Kevin Sorrels

          Awsome!

  • Midge Masters

    “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” ~ H. L. Mencken

    http://911essentials.com

  • Big Bear

    If I had got this, I would have ignored it. The only texts Verizon sends are ads.

    Ad = lie.

  • Skip Fanning

    THIS IS A TEST. ….IT IS ONLY A TEST …
    … iF THIS HAD BEEN AN ACTUAL EMERGENCY, WE’D BE DEAD BY NOW !!!!!

  • rlkhj

    Very bad corporation.

  • Chippy55

    Those idiots at Verizon called me 15 times before I had FIOS installed, sometimes 3 times a day, to tell me that FIOS was coming. Duh. Then they sent me a bill 5 months after I paid it, then sent a bill collecttor, and it turns out they were wrong due to THEM changing my account numberfrom phone service to FIOS. I sent 6 lbs of junk mail back to them, they never stop sending it, even when you have FIOS. Screw Verizon.

  • sheena

    Damn you autocorrect!

    • Tom Menino

      LOL. Very nice sheena.

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