This morning, just as I was wondering what I could use as an image to go with this story, leave it to the scammers to “answer the call.” This popped up on my phone. I doubt that I won anything. It has since been left unopened and deleted from my phone.
This morning, just as I was wondering what I could use as an image to go with this story, leave it to the scammers to “answer the call.” This popped up on my phone. I doubt that I won anything. It has since been left unopened and deleted from my phone.
Don't get "smished": Another scam to be aware of on your phone
SEND US A MESSAGE
by Karin L. Nauber
For many of us, our cell phones are our only phone. We answer them because maybe it is someone we need talk to. And it is actually considered “rude” to ignore a text message from someone.
When I was a kid, we were always “smishing” something up or “smashing” or “squashing” or “squishing” or doing some sort of other thing to bugs and dirt and things we found outside. We also went “fishing.” But today “phishing” is a bad thing (sounds the same, but is very different).
These days, we have to be careful with all of our technology devices.
Every day there seems to be a new scheme or scam out there waiting for innocent victims to fall prey to it.
A not so new one, but one that isn’t talked about much is “smishing.” Smishing is in essence phishing through SMS text messages.
According to an article distributed by the State of Illinois Department of Innovation & Technology Division of Information Security, “Mobile phones are a popular target of phishing scams. A recent trend in phishing is SMS phishing or smishing. Smishing is a scam sent to you via a text message. It is much easier to fall for these tricks on your mobile device because of its limited screen space and the “always on” nature of our mobile devices. . . .