Don’t let yourself fall victim to the many fake text messages that have been circulating recently. Phishing attacks are at a high right now with so many large-scale companies and databases being breached in recent years. There is so much personal information leaked to the world because of this, leading to massive lists that scammers use to find you and try to win your trust.
If you receive a text message that doesn’t quite make sense and you aren’t sure if it is real or not, it never hurts to call the related company or bank directly to ask. Of course, make sure to manually visit their website to find phone numbers (or use the ones you already know), and don’t dial the numbers or click on the links located in these text messages (which will clearly be fake if the message is a scam).
Some users have reported getting as many as 5-10 fake/scam text messages a week as of recent. Putting a lot of pressure on cellular companies to develop ways to try to combat it all. Many providers do offer in-house apps that can be downloaded that cross-reference phone calls and messages against a database/list of known scammers/spam. Alternatively, there are third-party options like TruCaller, Nomorobo, and Robo Shield that do the same. They typically really on crowd-sourced data (users reporting calls/messages for what they are so that the next user can eventually get a warning before answering).
Sadly, there is an unnecessarily large number of people around the world that won’t hesitate to ruin the lives of others. They use these messages to trick users into clicking on links or dialing numbers that result in various attempts to acquire or steal personal information. Don’t fall victim to these and feel free to report the messages you do find to the related companies so that they themselves can try to fight back in their own ways.
