FBI Shares Steps To Avoid New Smishing Fraud

Another day, another scam.

How The Latest Smishing Scam Works

They're speaking to mainly iPhone users however, it's best to take them seriously no matter what kind of phone you use.

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The cyber thief will:

• Call, email, or text saying they're from your bank. They usually say they're customer support
• With you on the phone they'll tell you something scary like fraudulent transactions of some sort like buying firearms
• They'll give you another site or number to report the fraud or they'll trick you into thinking you're talking to police when in reality it is a second scammer
• The second scammer, especially if they're impersonating the police, will walk you through the ID process on their fake site including getting your 2-factor authentication number

If they get all of this from you, they will take control of whatever account of yours you spoke about and will proceed to rob you of everything they can get their hands on.

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How Can You Protect Yourself Against This Scam?

• According to the FBI the best practice is to never ever answer a number that isn't in your phone
• For the love of all that's holy, use 2-factor authentication and never give anyone that number
• Share little or no information on social media. Especially password question answers like what you named your first dog or your mom's maiden name
• Monitor for transactions you don't know
• Never spend money on a site you got to by clicking through emails, texts, or any social media post

From personal experience 3-4 years ago, I can tell you the multiple person catfish thing is real. It happened to me when I was dealing with some stuff from HULU.

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Another thing I've seen a lot of lately on my phone are GROUP spam texts. Do not engage with the text, report it as spam and delete it.

Sources: The Street, MSN, KEYW, The Wichita Eagle