I don't think anyone here actually understands what is happening. SMS messages from 1(410)-000-XXX (such as 003, etc) are generalized senders. I can't explain technically how come it shows up like this, but it's not the sender's number at all.
I looked up this number on google to find a way to add the number as a contact so I could customize my ring-tone for alerts I receive, but I doubt there is a sufficient way to do it yet - at least not until you can use wildcards for the numbers... like 1410-* or 1410-000-***.
At any rate, I receive updates for work from two different platforms from the same numbers with the incremental last three digits all the time. I doubt if you reply back that there would be anyone on the other end to answer. Any time that a "stop" was sent back and it stopped was likely pure coincidence.
What I believe is that the messages received with this number format are from something that is mass generated, or being sent from email to your sms email address (i.e. your number
[email protected]), or being sent from some kind of sms service. Since this is the case, there wouldn't likely be any return path for sending messages back.
Unfortunately, I don't see any solution to put a stop to unwanted text messages coming in like this, other than changing your number or possibly if you are able to use a custom blacklist feature where you can use sms number wildcards. I think for the iPhone (jailbroken only) you can use iBlacklist for this (haven't tested it though).