New Text Messaging Scams Could Compromise Your Identity

Before texting became the norm for most who have a mobile phone, I thought this new way of communicating would be nothing more than a fad. Who has the patience to try and type a word, sentence, paragraph, or more from a tiny keyboard on a phone?

And even when I tried it, there were misspellings from hitting the wrong keys. It was frustrating, and to be honest, if I want to have a conversation with someone, I prefer to talk, not type on my mobile phone. Apparently, the rest of the world doesn't agree with me.

Get our free mobile app

I do use text messaging now more than I have in the past, but more often than not, I will actually make a phone call to whoever I'm trying to communicate with. But like everything else, there are people who are trying to take advantage of you through text messaging.

The Better Business Bureau (BBB) just released a warning about text messaging scams. Yes, it's a thing. It reported that recently, they received complaints of a scam and even some members of the BBB of Upstate New York's Scam Tracker also received the same text scam.

The BBB explains how the scam works:

You receive a text from someone claiming they met you recently. If you reply to a text like this, even with a polite, “Sorry, wrong number,” the stranger responds anyway, seemingly ignoring your answer. Usually, you’ll receive a few compliments and some photos.

Now, if you continue the text conversation, it will try to trick you into registering for certain websites and could end up asking for a credit card number. That could result in identity theft.

The Better Business Bureau suggests you avoid these chatbot scams by ignoring texts from strangers, block the number if you suspect it's a scam, and don't ever give out personal information. If you receive a text messaging scam, report it to the BBB Scam Tracker website.

via Better Business Bureau