Natalie toggles between news stories and enterprise reporting to bring timely personal finance topics to readers. Her mission is to help inform people of all financial backgrounds about events that may affect their financial futures. Her work has app.
Natalie Campisi Senior Staff WriterNatalie toggles between news stories and enterprise reporting to bring timely personal finance topics to readers. Her mission is to help inform people of all financial backgrounds about events that may affect their financial futures. Her work has app.
Written By Natalie Campisi Senior Staff WriterNatalie toggles between news stories and enterprise reporting to bring timely personal finance topics to readers. Her mission is to help inform people of all financial backgrounds about events that may affect their financial futures. Her work has app.
Natalie Campisi Senior Staff WriterNatalie toggles between news stories and enterprise reporting to bring timely personal finance topics to readers. Her mission is to help inform people of all financial backgrounds about events that may affect their financial futures. Her work has app.
Senior Staff Writer Caren Weiner Personal Finance EditorSince her first tax article appearing more than three decades ago in Money magazine, Caren Weiner has written and edited stories about money management topics ranging from investment fees and health costs to household budgets. Her finance- and invest.
Caren Weiner Personal Finance EditorSince her first tax article appearing more than three decades ago in Money magazine, Caren Weiner has written and edited stories about money management topics ranging from investment fees and health costs to household budgets. Her finance- and invest.
Caren Weiner Personal Finance EditorSince her first tax article appearing more than three decades ago in Money magazine, Caren Weiner has written and edited stories about money management topics ranging from investment fees and health costs to household budgets. Her finance- and invest.
Caren Weiner Personal Finance EditorSince her first tax article appearing more than three decades ago in Money magazine, Caren Weiner has written and edited stories about money management topics ranging from investment fees and health costs to household budgets. Her finance- and invest.
| Personal Finance Editor
Updated: Jun 9, 2023, 7:41pm
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Did your bank just text you an alert about fraudulent transactions? Careful – the fraud alert itself may be a scam. According to a new Federal Trade Commission (FTC) data analysis, the past year’s No. 1 text message scam involves fraudsters posing as a bank. The median loss for such bank texting scams was $3,000.
Overall, text message phishing—sometimes called “smishing”—cost consumers $330 million in 2022. That’s more than double the reported 2021 total.
Emma Fletcher, senior data researcher at the FTC, says text scams are so popular because scammers know consumers typically open their text messages.
“There’s a higher response rate with texts than emails or voicemails,” Fletcher says. “Because texts are so immediate and these scams are designed to create panic, they’re effective.”
The FTC findings are based on a random sample of 1,000 text messages provided by consumers. The most prevalent type of phony texts was bogus security-related messages from scammers who posed as big banks like Bank of America and Wells Fargo.
A key component is a pressing call to action, which gives people little time to think before they act.
“These texts are designed to create a sense of urgency, often by asking people to verify a large transaction they did not make,” according to the FTC report. The scammer poses as a bank representative and pretends to help you solve your problem or retrieve your “stolen money,” when in reality they’re the ones trying to steal your cash.
The FTC said that since 2019, reports of texts impersonating banks have increased nearly twentyfold.
Beyond bogus bankers, here are four more of 2022’s top text scams.
Amazon has more than 300 million active customers, so scammers feel safe assuming a target has an Amazon account. Similar to the bank scam, this one is an Amazon copycat scam that sends a text asking if you made a big purchase. When you call the number to find out what’s going on, the phony representative pretends to help you, but instead steals your money.
Source: FTC
Phony promises that you can make easy money have tricked people into losing money. The con artist asks you to put a sign on your car or work as a delivery driver for places like Whole Foods. Scammers may send a fake check for more money than you “actually earned” and trick you into sending the overage amount back to them.
Source: FTC
In the age of home delivery everything—from Amazon merchandise to food, medical supplies and more—the odds that text targets are expecting a package are pretty good. So scammers exploit that by claiming delivery problems. They pretend to be from UPS, FedEx or the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), with a text informing you that your delivery requires assistance. Sometimes the scammer may ask you to pay a small “redelivery fee.”
Source: FTC
Everybody loves to win something, unless that something is a fake prize that will end up costing you. In second place is the fictitious prize text. A scammer will text you saying you won a prize or reward and to get it you just have to pay a small shipping fee. Once you hand over your credit card information, the scammer can use it to rack up charges.
Source: FTC
Undoing the harm of getting scammed can be time-consuming and expensive, but avoiding scams at the beginning can be simple and straightforward. Keep in mind, it’s not just the naive who fall for these scams; anyone who isn’t vigilant can become a victim.
Here are a few simple steps to keep in mind the next time you get a text.
Slow down. Before you click the link, sign into your account or make a phone call, remember the message could be a scam. Even if it looks just like a text from a known business, that doesn’t mean it’s real. If a text seems urgent or the stakes are high (your bank account has been hacked, for instance), take a beat to double-check the facts.
Never click links or call numbers. Even if you think the text is authentic, do not click any links or make any phone calls to numbers within a text. If you want to verify if a text is real, call a phone number for the business that you know to be legit. For example, go to the Bank of America website for the authentic customer service number.
Often, links will lead consumers to a survey or form asking for sensitive information, like Social Security numbers. This is how scammers may attempt identity theft.
Fletcher says that scammers will often use “spoof numbers” that look like those from real businesses when they call you. If you click a link in your text, the scammer may call you and the caller ID might say “Bank of America” or “Wells Fargo.” While these tactics are not necessarily sophisticated, they are effective.
Filter and block unwanted texts. On iPhone and Android phones, you can enable settings to block spam phone calls and individually block callers. Androids and iPhones users can also filter text messages. That doesn’t mean that scam texts can’t slip through the cracks, though, so consider before you click.
