They claim to offer jobs and even send job seekers checks, usually with instructions to send some of the money to a different address for materials, training, or the like. Other texts target people who post their resumes on employment websites. With workplaces in transition, some scammers are using texts to perpetrate old-school forms of fraud – for example, fake “mystery shopper” jobs or bogus money-making offers for driving around with cars wrapped in ads. The text links to a convincing-looking – but utterly bogus – website that asks for a credit card number to cover a small “redelivery fee.”Ĥ. Postal Service, FedEx, or UPS claiming there’s a problem with a delivery. People may get a text pretending to be from the U.S. On any given day, what home or business isn’t expecting a delivery? Scammers understand how our shopping habits have changed and have updated their sleazy tactics accordingly. Reports to Consumer Sentinel tell us that fraudulent charges are likely to follow.ģ.
TRADE IDEAS HOLLY FREE
What about those texts claiming to be from a well-known company offering a free gift or reward? If people click the link and use their credit card to cover the small “shipping fee,” they’ve just handed over their account information to a scammer. What’s more, they may ask for personal information like Social Security numbers, setting people up for possible identity theft.Ģ. If they reply, they’ll get a call from a phony “fraud department” claiming they want to “help get your money back.” What they really want to do is make unauthorized transfers. People get a text supposedly from a bank asking them to call a number ASAP about suspicious activity or to reply YES or NO to verify whether a transaction was authorized.
According to the Data Spotlight, reports about texts impersonating banks are up nearly twentyfold since 2019 with median reported individual losses of $3,000 last year. The Data Spotlight focuses on these five common text message scams.ġ. It should also concern businesses that scammers often do their dirty work by stealing the names of well-known companies, with 51% of reports of text fraud categorized in Consumer Sentinel as business imposters. Aside from the fact that your family and friends may be among the consumers who have reported median personal losses of $1,000, a lot of the messages take on a distinctly “office-y” tone that may target your staff – fake deliveries, bogus job offers, and the like. The growth of text scams should be of particular concern to businesses. So people may have grown accustomed to responding to that ping with an automatic click. It’s estimated that text message open rates are as high as 98%, compared to email open rates of 20% – and they cost next to nothing to send. With reported losses more than doubling in 2021 and nearly five times what people reported in 2019, would you be able to spot the five most common text message scams? What about your employees?įirst, some background about what may be behind the proliferation of this form of fraud. The latest Consumer Protection Data Spotlight focuses on this form of fraud.
0 kommentar(er)
