A few weeks ago I received an email from a famous French seller of fragrances informing me that their servers have been breached and my personal info including name, email, address and phone number had been stolen. Great.

Other than change passwords I wasn’t sure what I could do to protect against abuse, and was wondering what form fraudulent attempts could take.

Now here’s possibly a new one.
I just received a text message saying «there is no postage on your shipment, therefore we cannot deliver it », with a tracking number and a link to follow to make a payment.
The tracking code indicated a shipment originating in my country.

At first I clicked at the link to look at it (a mistake perhaps already?) - but then I saw a form I was supposed to fill out to make a payment of 1.90 euros and I thought twice. «wait a minute, what shipment is this about? And how is this possible? ».
I just returned two mail order items but those were used a return label from the seller.
Sure enough my shipment receipts didn’t match, and I looked up the tracking number from the text message on the web site of the French postal service.
The number refers to a tracked letter that’s marked as having been sent on Aug 17- and delivered several days in a row.

then I wonder about the fact the text message was sent from a regular cell phone number and not some sort of service number.

I have to conclude the small sum involved is designed to make people shrug and not look too closely before they absent mindedly give away precious Paypal or other info.

Not sure this is the scam I was waiting for but I will now think twice about providing cell phone info on sales platforms.

 

I think it’s worth to report the whole case to the CNIL which is the right authority for that in France.

They’re having a lot of GDPR related fun nowadays.

 

As I frequently tell my 92 year old mother (who is a bit of a silver surfer) never click on links in messages unless you were expecting them.
They may have just wanted more information but I’d be more concerned that the (Innocuous) link may have had malware attached to it.

 

There are so many phishing attempts these days that you have to stay constantly vigilant against knee-jerk clicking. It's hard, since sometimes you just let down your guard for a moment and make a mistake. Even if it just results in adware/malware installation on your computer, that alone can be a real pain in the neck.

 

A mate of mine likes to bait them.
He's a tech guru and uses VPNs and other magic stuff to give them the run around.

I don't think I'll try it though, my bank account would probably be empty by lunch time if I tried to scam the scammers .

 

It has happened to me mostly with paypal and netflix but if you look carefully theres differences on the logos and companies protocolary message presentation. Basically the story is that account information needs to be updated so you give up your cards, financial info in a virtual formulary

 

Is there a way to protect phones against malware?

 

Sometimes I have fun with those forms and fill it out with things like Yo Mama as the name and suggestions as to what the scammer should go do with himself.

 

There are some apps that go under protectors guards etc that routinely scan ,organize ,clean and suggest the removal of suspicious files.

 

Two rules: 1. Never click on links and 2. Never click on links.

In almost all cases the tone and language is odd, and the senders email address is suspect (origin).

I just report it as phishing and move on.

Remain vigilant and keep your virus protection up to date.

 

Like "F" himself lol

 

I never do when I’m on my computer but this was a link in a text message on my phone. And so yes as stated I did click on the link.
Now If you have any remedial info or any info as to the dangers of malware on phones I’d appreciate.

 

Never click on a text or email link. If you see something odd, contact the business directly through info on their website. These scammers count on your stress, time challenges and impatience.

 

Do you have a protector downloaded on your phone where you can run a scan. If it’s an apple you are probably safe but I think everything is hackable no matter what these companies say.

 

Scammers can also send text messages that show up as a company name that you already have on your contacts.

 

iOS platform is generally better against malacious apps but as long as you are being diligent and smart like not clicking links or giving your personal info to unknown persons you are safe.
Scammers and hackers are smart guys, don't play with them is my rule.

 

Shouldn't be too difficult to work out whether or not the link takes you to a genuine secure website owned by a real courier/mailing company or post office? You can do that without clicking on it too (just hover the mouse over the link and see where it will take you). If you don't trust your ability to tell the difference, then you really ought to pay for and install Malwarebytes or similar.

 

Thanks everyone; just to be clear there’s no way I will use that link- I just wanted to flag what seems to me like a new type of scam.

@Walrus thanks for the note regarding I Phones, that is indeed what I’m using.

As for not clicking on links— I appreciate it should not be done and I don’t usually do so but I was caught by surprise by the fact this came via text message. And unfortunately I cannot undo what’s done.

 

Shoot we get so much info being shot at us 24/7 it’s easy to click something automatically. If not virus protection and a lot of security wouldn’t be so necessary. Just sounds like ur human to me.