USPS: Don’t Fall For Smishing Scams

Christmas may be over, but that doesn’t mean package delivery is over.  The U.S. Postal Service expects a lot of holiday, and non-holiday, packages to be delivered over the next couple of weeks.  And with that in mind, the USPS is reminding everyone to not fall for "smishing" scams.

The Postal Service’s John Hyatt said smishing is the practice of sending fake text messages asking users to click on a link to resolve a zip code or other issue with a pending package.  He warns personal data is what the sender is after.

"Basically criminals trying to obtain personally identifying information about a person, such as accounts, user names, passwords, dates of birth, credit card numbers – things like that."

Smishing texts can be relentless this time of year, but Hyatt said you should never follow the message prompts.

"When you get a suspicious text message, if you click on those links, it will take you to a website that could be downloading onto your phone and once you submit that information then they use it for nefarious purposes." 

In 2020, the Internet Crime Complaint Center reported over 240-thousand victims of smishing, phishing and other fraudulent schemes, costing over $54 million, with the average person losing about $800.

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