By REBECCA RUTHERFORD
Los Alamos 
For the Los Alamos Daily Post

Nothing gets your attention more than a text or email letting you know an unauthorized purchase has been made on your account, am I right?

Well, scammers know that too and they are actively taking advantage of it in a recent text scam I observed on my own phone.

Check it out, what do you think? Gets your attention, right?

Image of scam text message

So at first glance, you might freak out a little, the text is saying there’s an unauthorized charge, and at first glance you can see it’s directing you to go to a legitimate apple domain, right? That said, look more closely, the clues this is a scam are there.

• Who is the text from? Is this from a number identifying itself as Apple? Is this from a US number? Notice the number format shows you that it’s from a foreign number, and when I looked up the country code for 63, it’s a number from the Philippines.  Seems unlikely Apple would text me from a foreign number…
• Wow, the grammar. Phrasing. “Also some suspicious sign in request and apple pay activation request detected. That looks like suspicious to us.” Well thank you, that also looks like suspicious to me! The whole message has some really weird grammar and odd capitalizations, or lack thereof.
• They do give a legitimate Apple domain, but it’s not hyperlinked. They are hoping just seeing that legit domain is enough to get you to freak out and call the fake number.
• The requested way to contact them is a phone call. Does anyone really want to make a phone call in today’s world? All kidding aside, I googled that phone number to check it out.

Image of Google search results

Do I trust the search results from the 1st page of Google blindly? Nope. These results can in fact be poisoned, replaced with links to sketchy fake sites. These actually did look legit, but as someone who works in cybersecurity I trust nothing. So I still went to the Apple website to verify.

Image of Apple website customer service number

Surprise, the 1-855 number given in the text message is definitely not any official Apple help number!

If you get a text like this for Apple, or anything else, learn to look for signs it’s a scam. Bad grammar, odd capitalizations, sketchy links, etc. And if the text tells you that you need to call a customer service number, go to the actual company’s website to verify whether or not it’s a real customer service number before you make any calls.

The scam here lies in the phone call, they will talk to you, get you to install remote access software, and get you to give them access to your computer so they can steal your money and information. If they don’t do that they might just steal your personal or financial info over the phone, so avoid any interaction with these fake customer service numbers or websites.

Stay safe online, watch out for any texts or emails warning you of “unauthorized” purchases, this is one of the biggest scams around.