If you are being added to group messages from strangers, just block, report, and delete the messages. Do not interact with them in any way, not even to remove yourself from the group. Di not even open them to read, lest a read receipt be generated. If you remove yourself from the group, the scammers know they have hit a working number. These "group chats" are designed to try to obtain personal information from people. They will act like your long lost elementary school friend, estranged cousin or someone else where it's not easy to readily confirm their identity.
If you are using Google Messages, you can go to the settings and make sure spam protection is turned on. This will create a "spam and blocked" folder, where these messages will disappear to once you block them. You will not receive notifications for them. At the moment, I am unsure whether blocking the goup chat, blocks all the numbers in the chat, or just the originator. Remember that any numbers after the first number is likely someone who is also a potential victim. If you continue to get these group messages after blocking, it's likely that the scammer bot farm has used a different number. Just keep blocking and reporting, eventually the texts should lessen.
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You have a couple of options. First, no one can prevent scammers from calling you - that's a given. There are a number of ways to block spam calls from ringing through to your phone:
1) Open the phone dialer, tap the dot menu and select settings. turn n Caller ID and spam protection. Tap the text and set it to block all spam and scam calls. Some may still come through if they have not yet been identified and reported as spam (you can report these through the call log).
2) Turn on do not disturb and only allow calls and texts from people in your contact list, and always keep dnd on. All calls from numbers not in your contacts will go directly to voicemail, where you can delete them if they leave a message, but they will not ring on your phone.
3) Use your carrier's spam blocking tools - usually available through your online account - there may be a charge for premium spam blocking services.
4) Use a third party spam call blocking app, available in the Play store.
5) Change your phone dialer to Phone by Google, which I understand has better spam blocking tools than the native Samsung dialer.
6. Assign a custom ringtone to everyone in your contact list (you can create a group called "all contacts" and just set a ringtone for that group instead of going through each contact individually) and then set the default ringtone for your phone to "silent". All your contacts' calls will ring with the ringtone you select and all others will not ring through, although you will see the call on your screen so you can answer it if it's a legitimate call that's not in your contacts.
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