10 Text Scams To Watch Out For

Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let's talk about protecting yourself against text scams. 

So I don't think anybody would be surprised to learn that text scams are on the rise. The FTC estimates that $470,000,000 dollars was lost in 2024 to text scams and that number has been going up each of the last five years. A Pew research study estimates that 61% of all people in the U.S. get a text scam at least once a week. 20% at least once a day. That same survey showed that 24% of people have fallen for a text scam at least once, at least partially. I mean you hear about this in the news usually has to do with big numbers. Somebody loosing hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. But the vast majority of text scams results in somebody loosing less than a thousand dollars. 

Now the best way to protect yourself against text scams is to know about them. If you know the most common types of text scams then you'll recognize them when somebody tries to pull one on you. So let's start with the text scam that appears to be from your bank, credit card, or other financial institution. Usually this comes in the form of an alert. There's been some sort of suspicious activity or maybe your account is overdrawn or maybe some login attempts have failed. It puts you on alert and gets you to feel the sense of urgency. The text usually includes some sort of link or phone number to call or they want you to text back and it's trying to make it seem like you can protect yourself by interacting with the text. But, of course, the text isn't from your bank. It's from a scammer and they are just trying to get you to handover some of your information. Maybe just some basic details or even as much as your bank account or password to your online account. 

Of course the right thing to do is to never interact with the text at all. If you really think something is going on you just logon to your bank's regular site, not using any link in the text, but the link you already have or bookmarked or know and see if there's an alert or notification there. If you really want you can just call your bank with the phone number that you have on one of your statements or your card. One of the things about this type of scam is people sometimes fall for it because the text mentions the name of their bank. They think, well how do they know I even have an account at that bank. But scammers send out millions and millions of these to random people with random names of banks. Chances are you just dismiss it when it is not a bank you do business with. But when it is suddenly you think it maybe legitimate. But it is just a random change that they picked your phone number and a random name of a bank and they both match. 

Now this next type of scam is actually the most frequent. It is simply a text that seems to come from a delivery service. It could be FedEx. It could be UPS. It could be the United States Postal Service, or anybody or even a fake delivery company saying that you've missed a package or a package hasn't been able to be delivered or even that a package was delivered and there is some information pointing to the fact that it may have been miss delivered to somewhere else. So the idea is maybe you're waiting for a package. We order stuff online all the time. Or even if you don't maybe you think somebody sent you something and you want to get it. But, in fact, there's no package. It is just a scam. If you are expecting something then ignore the message and go back to whomever you ordered it from to check the tracking for that package. Chances are you'll find that it has nothing to do with it. The text message is just completely fake. They want you to respond so they can get some information from you, or perhaps, get you to pay some sort of small fee so that you can get the package delivered or redelivered or through customs or whatever. 

But of course it is all not real. They are going to take that small amount of money from you, and from thousands of other people, or perhaps they're just saying they are going to take a small amount of money from you and they will, in fact, use the information you gave to take a larger amount. 

Now related to that is getting a text of a purchase. Like a receipt or invoice or something like that. Usually it seems to be a pretty casual non urgent text saying that you're purchase is complete or your order has been received and it is for some, somewhat expensive item like an Xbox or something like that. The idea is to get you to think, oh no somebody has used my information and is making purchases with one of my credit cards or something like that. But, of course, the contact information, whether it is a phone number or a link or they just want you to text back, that's all fake. They are trying to get information from you, maybe even asking you for your credit card number for verification, or the login credentials for a site, and they are trying to scam you. They are trying to play on your outrage here, that somebody purchased something using your phone number or your credit card. 

Now perhaps the oldest one of these types of scams is the reward or sweepstakes. A message you get saying that you've won something. But, of course, we don't get notifications for sweepstakes or powerball lotteries or any of that through text messages. So, these are completely fake and they usually are trying to get you to pay some sort of small handling fee so you can get your bigger prize. But there is no prize. 

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A common one today is a road toll charge scam. This is when you get a text and it appears to be from a toll road. Sometimes they can even match the local toll road to your phone number just using the area code and prefix. So you think, oh maybe I did accidentally drive on a toll road or maybe they mistook somebody else's license plate for mine in the reader and now I'm getting charged ten or fifteen dollars or whatever it is for using a toll road that I didn't use. They want you to click on the link or respond or call a phone number to straighten it out. But, of course, it's not real. You didn't actually use that toll road and they are just trying to get information from you. We often laugh at these when it is from a toll road in a completely different state. Some place we haven't recently been. But then a lot of people fall for them when randomly that toll road happens to be nearby or happens to be where, say, they were on vacation last month. 

Another type of scam is to get a non-urgent message saying that you've successfully logged onto a website and it could be something pretty important. Social media, banking, and all of that. The message it trying to get it to seem like perhaps somebody else has logged into your account. A lot of times it will mention a location and show that location someplace far away. So instantly you think you're being scammed that way. That somebody has broken into your account. But in fact the text message itself is a scam. Trying to get you to click on the link or respond to prevent this unauthorized access when in fact what you'll then be doing is giving information to the scammer. Sometimes this goes pretty far. Even trying to get you to reveal a two-factor code. The way that works is somebody guesses your password to log into a site. But since they don't have the two-factor code they try to trick you into giving it to them. They do this by sending you a text message saying that there's been an unauthorized attempt at logging in and they want to fix the problem. They are going to send you a code to verify that you're really you. But what they are trying to do is then logging onto that site. The site then sends you a real code. But then you relay it to the scammer. So now you've given them access by relaying that code. Never give a two-factor code to somebody else. Anytime you get one of those two-factor codes to login always treat it as the highest of secrets. The only place that goes is in the login prompt on the site or in the app. You don't ever forward it to somebody else. 

Now, of course, some of the scams that work the best are the ones that have a lot of urgency to them. So sometimes you'll get a text pretending to be from the police, a sheriff department, or some sort of court. Sometimes it will say there's a warrant out for your arrest or you've been accused of a crime or you simply missed jury duty. You need to fix this problem. They are trying to get you to respond to call, to click on the link, and then once you do that they will say there is some sort of solution that involves you simply paying a fee. Law enforcement is never going to use text messages to try to get you to pay some sort of fee.They will send sort of official notice by mail. Either way you should be calling that police department or court directly with the official number, not the one that is texted to you to find out if this is real. Of course it is not going to be. 

Now sometimes these scams will play off of our desperation, particularly when it comes to loans. A lot of people have really big loans for homes, cars, and of course student loans. So, you get text messages claiming to be some sort of debt forgiveness program. These programs sometimes actually do exist. But you are not going to be getting a text message from them like this out of the blue. They are just trying to get information from you so that they can scam you in some other way or even take out another loan to put you even more in debt. 

So these last two are kind of weird because they are not like the rest. The first is the completely wrong number or pig butchering scam. This is when you get a text message from somebody that you don't know and it is a casual message. Like can you pick me up at the airport, or thanks for your help the other day. Something like that. It appears to be a wrong number but it tries to play on your compassion that you may want to actually inform the person that, oh I think you meant this for somebody else. Then they will start up a conversation with you. It might be really slow at first, over weeks, and eventually they will try to create a friendship that will lead to some sort of an investment scam. It is really subtle and a lot of people have fallen for this kind of scam loosing a lot of money. People that do it use scripts and psychological techniques that can fool even the best of us. 

The last one is kind of the opposite of that. You get a text that appears to be from somebody you know and they are asking for help and usually it is urgent and they don't want you to tell anybody else about it. There's all sorts of excuses for that. Sometimes this is called the grandparent scam because the message goes out pretending to be from a grandchild to a grandparent and don't tell the parents that I'm in trouble. That kind of thing. The idea is you send some money to bail somebody out of some sort of trouble. But, of course, it never was that person in the first place. They just send out millions of these hoping that some of the time they're right and there actually is a grandparent with a grandchild that gets in touch and then the grandparent falls for it. So even if it is your best friend or relative that asks for help always be a little suspicious about that. Maybe reach out to a mutual friends and relatives and make sure you're talking to the right person. Of course it is almost always a scam. The number of scams like this far outnumber the actual request for urgent help. 

Of course there are new techniques being created all the time. But hopefully learning these ten really puts your mind in the right place for identifying scams when they come in as a text message. When you do get one of these here's what you need to do. First, don't respond. Never respond. Never click on a link. Don't call any phone number or do anything requested in that text. If you really want to know more go to that organization or that person directly without using any of the information provided in that text message. On the iPhone when you get a message like this you can easily delete it. When you delete it you're usually prompted as to whether or not you want to report Junk. So you can do that. You can also setup your iPhone in the Settings App, under Apps, under Messages, to filter unknown callers. It will not put them in your main inbox in the Messages App. But in a separate place. This helps you right away kind of identify that these are things that you should be suspicious of. Also, with any phone you are on you can always forward spam or scams to 7726 to report it your mobile phone provider. You can also report fraud to the FTC by going to Report Fraud.FTC.gov.

I want to end by encouraging you to talk to others about these scams. The more you talk to your friends, your relatives, your neighbors about them the more likely is that they will recognize a scam when they get a text message like this. Thanks for watching and keep your guard up.