Resourceful scammers are constantly inventing new tricks to steal money from trusting people. With their new tactics, all you have to do is reveal your cell phone number on Facebook and then click a link in one of incoming text messages.
Recently, a young woman in Europe revealed her phone number to a guy pretending to be her friend on Messenger. Soon after that, she started receiving text messages about payments in progress from her bank account.
What happened? After this woman revealed her phone number on Facebook, scammers convinced her to download malware to her phone – probably after they send her a text message and convinced her to click a link in it.
Then they made several online payments that required two-factor authentication. Because they were able to intercept all woman’s incoming messages, they were also able to steal a lot of money from her account.
How to avoid this scam?
Don’t want to fall for this kind of scam? Here’s what to do step by step:
1. Don’t click any suspicious links in text messages
Don’t let scammers trick you into clicking to anything. Because there’s a good chance that if you click on a phishing link, your mobile device will get infected with malware.
2. Get a free SMS and spam blocker
This is the easiest way how to avoid malicious text messages with malware. Here’s how you do that.
3. Do you have any doubts?
Contact your phone provider.