The Penny Hoarder: I’m an Idiot. Don’t Fall for the Phishing Scam I Just Fell for
I feel like a fool. After years of occasionally writing articles about scams and fraud, I fell for a simple phishing scam on my cell phone. I gave up my debit card information to a scammer — possibly one based in the tiny European nation of Montenegro.
It happened like this: Two days after I mailed a package, I got a text message saying the package was undeliverable. A link took me to an official-looking Postal Service website where I was prompted to enter a card number to “re-mail” the package.
I typed in my personal financial information, even though in retrospect I obviously should have known better.
This experience left me with two burning questions:
How did these scammers know I had sent a package in the mail?
Is this something that other people should be worried about? How should they handle it?
So I spoke with a bunch of online security experts. They disagreed about whether the scammers actually knew I had mailed a package.
But they all agreed on one thing: This kind of phone texting scam is becoming increasingly common. People need to watch out, the experts say, because the problem is only likely to get worse.