Text Scam

[Lee Smith]

If anyone has any family members who may be susceptible to falling for a text scam, have a word with them to be on the look out for this one. My mum almost got caught out by it today. Basically they message people pretending to be someone’s son / daughter, with the end game of getting them to send them money etc. Luckily she rang my missus and I quickly realised what was going on. So I borrowed my mum’s phone and decided to have some fun instead

 

[WA Toffee]

A pretty good one they have now in Australia is they phone up pretending to be from the passport office with an update on your childs passport application. For security reasons you have to confirm their name, address and date of birth before you can proceed.

I almost fell for it because like 90% of Australians, we were renewing passports and there are long delays, and I had phoned them for an update just 3 days earlier.

I'm sure a lot of identities have been stolen recently by that one.

 

[anjelikaferrett]

The people who do this are absolute scum and the scams are getting more sophisticated and realistic. I nearly got caught the other day by one allegedly from Amazon saying there had been a log in on my account from a new device. Was just about to click on the links when I checked the email address which had nothing to do with Amazon.

 

[Huyton Layne]

The people who do this are absolute scum and the scams are getting more sophisticated and realistic. I nearly got caught the other day by one allegedly from Amazon saying there had been a log in on my account from a new device. Was just about to click on the links when I checked the email address which had nothing to do with Amazon.

Doesn't help that most email apps show a very brief header which is just the name the email sender has given themselves. You have to click the header to see that it's from some wacky domain with a randomly generated name. Email providers should be showing the sender's address below their name.

 

[ClausThomsen]

The people who do this are absolute scum and the scams are getting more sophisticated and realistic. I nearly got caught the other day by one allegedly from Amazon saying there had been a log in on my account from a new device. Was just about to click on the links when I checked the email address which had nothing to do with Amazon.

That's why I never do anything important on my phone - on my PC I can hover the mouse over a link and straightaway see if it's genuinely linking to a legitimate site. Easier to miss on a phone.