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The term “smishing” combines the concept of “phishing” with SMS, a.k.a., texting. Let’s break that down even further. Phishing tries to steal personal information through deceptive communication. SMS stands for “short message service.” Therefore “smishing” is the method for a wide variety of scams from identity theft, to social security, to alerts related to COVID-19. The AARP Fraud Resource Center summarizes some do’s and don’ts for how to avoid smishing scams.
Have you received an unexpected text from someone?
Yes! Just recently, as a matter of fact. I've been getting text msgs from weird named addresses warning me about my FB post. One said "my post" did not comply with TOS rules. One was something about users wanted me to remove tags.
Thing is, I don't do FB. I have no idea what they're after, but I'm not clicking any links to find out.
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