{"id":19172,"date":"2022-11-29T05:13:47","date_gmt":"2022-11-29T05:13:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/siit.co\/guestposts\/?p=19172"},"modified":"2022-11-29T05:13:47","modified_gmt":"2022-11-29T05:13:47","slug":"how-to-spot-suspicious-text-messages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siit.co\/guestposts\/how-to-spot-suspicious-text-messages\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Spot Suspicious Text Messages"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-19173 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/siit.co\/guestposts\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Screenshot-2022-11-29-125537-300x200.png\" alt=\"man holding phone\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/><\/p>\n<h1 style=\"text-align: center\"><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">How to Spot Suspicious Text Messages<br \/>\n<\/span><\/h1>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">You hear your phone&#8217;s text notification, and your initial reaction is that of excitement. After all, you probably receive fewer text messages these days, given that most of your communication is done via social media apps. The sender could be someone special. You could be in for a lovely surprise. This article will show you on how to spot suspicious text messages and how to avoid them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">You see the unknown sender in your inbox. You open the message. It tells you you&#8217;ve won something you never registered for. Yes, you&#8217;re being scammed. Understandably, your excitement is quickly replaced with irritation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">SMS messaging is a powerful and accessible tool for communication, with 5 billion users worldwide. That makes any of these users an easy target for people wanting to profit from an unsuspecting victim&#8217;s naivet\u00e9. Do not fall prey to these hackers and scammers. Look out for the following red flags to\u00a0avoid SMS scams.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h1 style=\"text-align: center\"><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">\u00a0<\/span><\/h1>\n<h2><b>You won something<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It feels great to win something. But if you did not join any contests or you don&#8217;t remember sending raffle entries anywhere, there&#8217;s no reason to believe the universe will reward you simply for existing. That is, even if living in these difficult times indeed deserves a reward.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">That text message informing you that you won a trip to The Bahamas is probably a trip to scamland, and that&#8217;s not a place you want to go. Ignore the message and never send your personal details to claim your &#8220;prize.&#8221;\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><b>Links to &#8220;supposedly&#8221; legitimate sites<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Phishing is one of the go-to tactics for scammers. While most phishing scams happen via email, some find their way to your SMS inbox too.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">An example of a phishing scam is when you receive a message from your bank. The sender will direct you to a supposedly legit link where you need to update your banking details. Once you click that link and input your details, including your password, the scammer has gotten hold of your banking information. They can then do whatever they want with your account, including depleting your funds.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">You can call your bank when you receive those kinds of messages. Ask them if there&#8217;s a need to update your information. Inform them that someone is masquerading as a representative of the bank to scam others<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><b>Branding inconsistency<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The devil is in the details. While it&#8217;s now easy for scammers to appear legit, thanks to Photoshop and other tools that allow them to copy a brand&#8217;s branding, such as the logo, you can still spot minor inconsistencies that give them away.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">As for SMS scams, look for brand voice inconsistency. If you regularly receive communication from your favorite brands, you likely know how they compose their messages, from the greeting they use to how they sign off a correspondence. Anything out of the ordinary should alert you. Message the business via official channels to make sure.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\"><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\"><\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>Random delivery notice<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">There is where you receive a notice about a <a href=\"https:\/\/siit.co\/guestposts\/enhanced-delivery-pickup\/\">parcel<\/a>. You&#8217;re either the supposed sender or receiver. If the SMS claims you&#8217;re the sender, but you know you did not send anything to anyone, ignore this message. The opposite scenario might be trickier. It&#8217;s always possible that someone indeed sent a parcel your way, and if the text message has your name and address, you might get convinced of its legitimacy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">However, no courier service will ask for your credit card details or additional payment to process your parcel. Those are the red flags you need to be wary of.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Other narratives scammers use to potentially make money from you include messages about family emergencies, refund notices, and reactivation requests.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\"><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>Unusual numbers<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Brands use SMS marketing to reach customers. They typically use 10-digit numbers or shortcodes. Messages from abnormally long numbers are doubtful, so do not respond to those. Better yet, block them ASAP. You can also report these numbers to your respective phone providers since they have their own processes for dealing with <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/q5id.com\/blog\/8-digital-identity-management-challenges-in-telecom-and-their-solutions\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">security<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and scam texters on their platforms.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\"><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>Spelling and grammar errors<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Brands have a budget for writers and editors. They want their correspondence to look professional; therefore, they won&#8217;t allow spelling and grammar errors to appear in the official messages they send to clients and customers. That won&#8217;t look good on them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Be wary of those errors. Chances are, some tech-savvy person composed the message. That person probably failed English.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\"><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>Be wary of these red flags<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The next time your phone notifies you of a text message, there&#8217;s nothing wrong with feeling giddy about the possibilities. It could be your one true love finally professing their intention. At the same time, keep a healthy degree of suspicion, so you don&#8217;t get disappointed or, worse, scammed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Anyone privileged enough to use technology should stay cautious and responsible. While you likely want to keep your faith in humanity, remember that there are people with bad intentions, too. And once you let them in, they won&#8217;t think twice about pilfering whatever they can get from you.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The first step to protecting yourself is familiarizing the usual tactics employed by those hackers and scammers. Take to heart the red flags included in this list.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\"><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How to Spot Suspicious Text Messages You hear your phone&#8217;s text notification, and your initial reaction is that of excitement. After all, you probably receive&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1661,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How to Spot Suspicious Text Messages - SIIT - Tech Guest Posts<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"With the prevalence of tech scammers the text message has always been one of the facets you might get scammed. 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