I’m fairly certain something about my iPhone X or Apple ID is compromised

Hi, I’m no technology expert, but I’ve owned most of the iPhones since they were released originally—then the Plus models until the X.

I think it began with the 7 Plus. My iCloud email slowly started having spam—the kind that’s fairly inappropriate—and much more. It startled me at first because I’ve never really used anything but Apple products. I learned late in life and my late husband insisted (rightly so imo) I stick with Apple.

I use iPhones to take photos of my paintings, flowers, portraits, reference photos, etc., and oftentimes send the photos via text. With the 7 Plus in iMessages it would get “stuck” on the addressee and just stay there while I was trying to send a text or photo. I’d need to reboot the iPhone to get it to send. That didn’t always work.

Another issue that kept happening was I’d receive text messages from known Android devices that would come in as “blue,” and not green. Once the sender was sitting right next to me with an Android and sent me a message—it was in blue as if it were an iPhone sending it. And vice-versa.

One sender kept changing into different people within the same text conversation. I would get unrelated texts from a man named “Carlos,” while I was communicating with Melissa. Melissa was sitting next to me. I took it to the Genius Bar and they acknowledged/could see what was happening, but said they had literally never seen that before and didn’t know what it could be. They had me erase all contents and settings. That did not fix it. I just lived with it and was looking forward to upgrading at some point in the future.

Finally I got the X. It didn’t take long for the same issues to start happening. This time with the added issue of crashing super-often and web pages constantly reloading while I’m reading them.

I get weird texts (suggestive) from unknown-to-me numbers, sometimes like 5 digits with a - in the middle. Increasingly, lately, I get lots of phone calls from the area code in the Bay Area that matches my number (where I used to live). And also from the area code in OR where I currently live. And they’re persistent, they call at all hours.

Sorry this is so long. Tomorrow I will receive the XR as an upgrade. What I’m wondering is how to set up the iPhone? Is there a way to protect it/myself when I set it up? I’ve usually set each new iPhone up as new, then when asked for my Apple ID and pw I enter it.

Would creating a whole new Apple ID possibly head off future problems? I realize this is a first world issue, but I’d like very much to just have a regular, normal experience. I am getting old and I am widowed. I honestly don’t know why I’m interesting enough to mess with. Maybe that’s not what’s happening but it sure feels like something is.

Thank you!

Finally, I got the X, and