Scam Warnings: Text Message SMISHing & Other Cons

A warning has been issued locally after scam text messages have been received by residents in North East Wales.

The texts that have been received by a number of residents reads:
‘ACCEPTED; You passed the credit check for (various amounts of money), we need to transfer it to
your bank account as soon as possible please complete the attached form for us to transfer’.

It then has a link to click on. This would appear to be ‘SMISHing’ text.

‘SMISHing’ occurs when a scammer sends you a text message asking you to provide personal and/or
financial information. The message may appear to be from a legitimate company. Legitimate
companies will not ask you to provide sensitive information by text. The general advice is to NEVER reply to these types of text messages.

It is advisable to be extremely cautious on sending ‘STOP’ to an unknown number as this can be a
method used to confirm that a phone is still ‘active’ and your details can be sold on to a firm which may call you to try to get you to use them. On some occasions there is a charge.

A further warning issued relates to fake TV Licensing emails, with a report of a suspected ‘Phishing E Mail’ purporting to be from TV Licensing by a resident in the Wrexham area.

Phishing is when you are sent an email which is designed to look like it comes from a trustworthy organisation but has actually come from someone else. The sender normally wants you to provide them with passwords or bank or credit card details or to pay money into their account.

Here at Wrexham.com we have seen a rise in the number of fake phish attempts, ranging from Google logins, Companies House emails and various bank password reset emails – all entirely fake but looking more convincing than ever before.

We would advise not just being more aware, but perhaps mentioning the above issues to people you know who are less tech savvy so they are at least open to the idea that an email from a bank could well be from a scammer instead of their local branch!