What is a text or SMS scam?

Scams that use your phone’s messaging service

Text or SMS scams are messages that are sent to smartphones to defraud you. They aim to steal your money, access your credit cards and sell your personal details on the internet to use in other scams.

SMS stands for Short Message Service and is the default way to message on any smartphone. There are other messaging apps that scammers target too, and we call messages to these apps texts. For this course, we’ll refer to SMS and text scams as scam messages or SMS scams.

Scams come to messaging apps, and other apps

Most scam messages will use the mobile phone network and the general SMS system. Some might use your phone’s own texting app, such as iMessage on iPhone, or a third-party messaging app such as WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger.

What a scam message looks like

A scam message looks like a legitimate text message, so they can be hard to spot. Usually, however, it will ask you to take immediate action or pretend there’s some kind of crisis. For example, a scam text might say there’s an unexplained charge on your credit card, or it might threaten to cut off an important service like your electricity or the internet.

Common scam messages

Sometimes a scam message might claim your accounts have been hacked and you need to change your password. Or it might say you missed an important delivery. Some scams claim to be from a friend or family member in need of help, and some messages even claim to be from the government and threaten you with large fines unless you act immediately.

Scam SMS messages contain a link

After telling you to take action, the scam message might include a link to tap, or a phone number to call. If you tap the link, you will be taken to a fake website which usually looks very convincing and will attempt to deceive you into giving up personal details such as your passwords and financial information.

If you phone the number, a scammer will try to keep you on the call to gather personal information about you.

Scam messages can look real

Scammers often use a technique called spoofing to make a message look legitimate. For example, a banking scam text could look like it has come from your bank’s real telephone number, and the link inside the message might look like it goes to your bank’s real website.

In reality, the message is fake and if you tap the link, you will be taken to a fake website.

eSafety tip

It is generally a good idea to never tap on links in messages. However, there are times when you may need to use links in messages to:

• track deliveries
• verify your accounts
• share files from one device to another.

Only tap a link if you are certain the message is genuine, such as if you are expecting a delivery or have been in contact with your bank about setting up a new account. You can also verify the message by, for example, visiting the courier’s website and entering the tracking number for your delivery, or logging in to your bank account independently to verify your details.

Sometimes messages are real

It is possible that a message is legitimate, but there are so many scams it’s safer not to respond to it directly by tapping a link or phone number inside the message.

Instead, call the person yourself or contact them via email or social media. For a company or organisation, use the phone number or contact information on its official website to verify the message is genuine.

Well done!

This is the end of the What is a text or SMS scam? activity. You’ve learned what text and SMS scams are and how they work.

Coming up next is the How to identify a text or SMS scam activity, which will show you the ways to tell a scam from legitimate communication.