At 10:07 EST this morning, I received a text message, “(Contact WellsFargo Department) Call 617 532 0924” As I do have an account with Wells Fargo, I called the number at 17:33 only to hear the message, “This is a message from the Federal Trade Commission. The telephone number you just called has been disconnected because it may be involved in a scam. [remainder of message omitted]”
Does the FTC have the authority to seize a phone number in 7 hours time? I’ve never heard of that.
I’m in Canada and have no idea what your FTC can or can not do in what amount of time, but your description does not imply that the FTC can do x in 7 hours. It could be a scam that had been pumping out those text messages for a long time and you just happened to be at the tail end of the scam calls.
This link was second on Google after this thread, which suggests that before this thread, it was first:
http://www.wsav.com/story/24311143/christmas-day-texting-scam-hits-thousands
The scam likely violates the service contract for the phone line; thus the phone company may have voluntarily removed the line from service and put up the FTC’s message. The FTC may not have seized the line, per se.
Did you give Wells Fargo written permission to contact you via text messages? By email? By phone? If not, [you were the one being scammed](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/wells fargo text scam).
Technically (and legally, since law turns on these small disctinctions), that message does not say the FTC has seized the phone number or the phone line, only that the FTC created the message.
As runningdude stated, the actual (temporary) disconnect was likely done voluntarily by the phone company. There are many reasons why they’d do this. The most obvious of which is to avoid the legal liability of knowingly participating in possible fraud.