Speaker 1: There are more scammers than ever before. Targeting our phones with bogus text messages. I'll teach you how to spot a scam and how to deal with them. Before I get started, please take a second to subscribe to the how to do it all channel for more videos like this, with advice that can level up your life. Okay. So scammers are, are getting really creative in how they trick us on our phones and reports are showing a huge increase of texting scams. In the past year. It's all designed to trick us into [00:00:30] sharing things like passwords and credit card numbers, or even trick us into installing malware. This is often called a Phish attack. So I wanna give you some red flags to watch out for. So you don't become a victim. The first thing to remember when you get an out of the blue urgent text, don't panic, scammers love to pre on panic and make you feel pressured to act fast, to fix something gone wrong.
Speaker 1: These messages may need you to act now about something like a locked out account, suspicious activity, or a canceled online [00:01:00] order or delivery. You gotta stay skeptical of messages from unknown numbers, even if it says it's from a bank or a well-known company. So here are some, I've gotten as examples, a chase card temporarily restricted call now, but that number it doesn't lead to chase. It's likely someone posing as a bank to gather your personal info and use it to get access to your money or open up other accounts in your name more often, these scams just want you to click on a link. See this one online service has been locked due to unauthorized access [00:01:30] online banking, disabled due to recent activity. And here's another one that says, uh, your accounts locked in. You gotta click the secure link. Oh, really? It's secure. Sure.
Speaker 1: Jan. Sure. So that brings us to 0.2. Don't click anything ever in any message, but what if it's Nope, but what about nothing? It could download malware on your device. It could take you to some spoofed website that looks real, but it's just a way for someone to get your login password. Sometimes the links will open up [00:02:00] websites that make it look like you got something for free. Like here's a free Netflix account or free economic health because of everything going on with the pandemic. No, do not give your information to anyone. I'm sorry to tell you, but you didn't win any contest because you didn't enter any contest. And here's another example I got, it said to send, stop, to avoid receiv alerts. Ooh. They really try to make it look professional with that little stop thing, do not engage. That means do not [00:02:30] click anything, do not type back anything you do not reply.
Speaker 1: Stop. It will not stop. It will just confirm to the scammers that your number works and it's gonna lead to more junk, even more junk calls. In this example, from the us federal trade commit, the FTC a text says a package delivery from FedEx needs you to set delivery preferences. And you may believe it because we get so much stuff online these days, or maybe someone sent you something that you weren't expecting, but just because there's a tracking code in there, it doesn't mean it's real. [00:03:00] They put it in there to make it look real. Don't click anything, go straight to FedEx's website. If you need to track a package. And that brings us to a third big point. If some message has you weirded out, you're worried. You're not really sure if it's legit close the text message open up your browser, go directly to the sighting question without clicking any links.
Speaker 1: If someone's posing us FedEx, just close that text, open a window, log onto FedEx. If there's a text about Amazon or Walmart or target and some mystery order, [00:03:30] which is a common scam in the holiday season, you just gotta go to those websites. Log yourself, see the status of any recent orders. Now I know going that route means you don't get an answer right away, but you also don't have malware and the headache of accidentally giving a fake website, your password. So that's a win. The scams changed with the seasons. Many scammers took advantage of all the uncertainty around the pandemic and stimulus checks. The department of justice saw a huge increase of fake websites [00:04:00] designed to look like bank or government pages. Here's another big red warning flag watch for strange characters being used in a message to throw off your eyes. Maybe a URL or a link is using zeros for letter OS or they use the Russian Ceric alphabet, which can look similar to Latin letters.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the message is just so sloppy with poor grammar. It's laughable, but it actually throws people off as a disorientation tactic. So you quickly jump to panic and check on this other scam. I [00:04:30] got this. One's from chase mobile. I don't know what that is telling me to go to. No, it's not go to it's G zero T zero pound arrow arrow. Then some tiny you are. Well, no, that's not how a bank would act. Even if it's an automated message. You gotta, you gotta stop and pause here. You know, you can often check if these things are well known scams, just do a quick Google search. See if it has been reported about by the FTC or the FCC, the federal communications commission, cuz both of those groups [00:05:00] fight to protect rumors against this kind of fraud. Stopping the scams. Isn't always so simple when it comes to text messages.
Speaker 1: So you could block a number to help cut down on future annoyances and you could report it. Sometimes apps have this report spam button, or you can forward the message to the number 7, 7 26. That's spells out S P a M spam. And that sends it to your carrier to investigate. You can also report it directly to the FTC [00:05:30] or the FCCS websites, but bottom line, you just need to say skeptical. Don't go clicking strange text message links. Okay? Okay. We have some more advice in the description below. If you wanna keep reading more on this topic and you could subscribe and ring the bell to not miss other great how to videos from our channel. And please, if you think this one was helpful, I hope you did go ahead and share it with friends and family because not everyone out there is
Speaker 2: So savvy with the latest scams and [00:06:00] if you help others, it feels good. You're doing good. And you know, you should get a prize for being so good. So go ahead and click that link above quickly to claim your prize up. I saw your mouse move. You're almost gonna do it. I saw you don't go clicking strange links on the internet. You never click. You didn't learn anything. Did you? I'm watching you. I need you to stay safe. Okay, good.
