Consumer Law

"Smishing"

By M. Stan Herring

Yahoo Tech has posted an article warning about a new kind of spamming called "smishing." It's getting more and more difficult for spammers to succeed through emails, and many are beginning to text message instead of email. This technique is called "smishing."

People are much more accustomed to ignoring spam emails, but not text messages. Texts are also not filtered through spam guards like emails.

Consumers should ignore any text messages sent to them that tell them to call a toll-free number to "complete or cancel some financial transaction." The article says that the only company that is likely to contact you through text message is your cell phone provider. If you receive a message that concerns you, contact your bank or service provider instead of calling the number in the message. Doing so can prevent identity theft.

If you have had a problem with scamming leading to identity theft, feel free to contact us.

Full post as published by Alabama Consumer Blog on May 01, 2009 (boomark / email).