That happened to my sister. They texted her saying "A Haliah girl was talking about you behind your back the other day" Then it showed a link to the website (I didn't tap it) and it also showed an emoji like this:
My names Nicole and not really sure how they got it but the message they sent was, "(1/2) Yo Nicole a girl was talking about you on ". No website or anything and they haven't replied back so
your good friends downloaded a malicious app that stole all their contact into and is now texting everyone. This app costs money so they are in effect stealing.