Scammers have expanded their schemes from emails to text messages, hoping their ease of use and speed of response will be too hard for potential victims to resist. The scammers are relying on you to not pay attention to details in these texts and respond with less thought. The scam texts usually have one thing in common — they impersonate a known entity like a bank or delivery service.

The Federal Trade Commission reports that in 2022 the top 5 text scams were copycat bank fraud prevention alerts; fake “free” gift offers that involved significant costs; fake package delivery problems; phony job offers; and false security alerts from Amazon. The response to receiving one of these scam texts is as simple as not clicking on links or responding to unexpected texts. The trick is taking the time to recognize the potential scam. If you think the text may be legitimate, contact the company using a phone number, email or website you know is real. Don’t use contact information in the text message.