Illinois, Here’s What To Know About The Trending “Smishing” Holiday Scam

We can't have nice things at the holidays because of stuff like this.

It's the holidays and we're all spending money which means scammers are having such fun right now. We've told you about how scammers try to come at you through QR codes and in snail mail but one of the more entertaining scams is called "smishing".

"Smishing" is a combination of 'SMS' and 'phishing'. Around the holidays, you may get a weird text that seems like it's from your bank or a package delivery service. You obviously care about that if you ordered some presents online and the FTC gave this example of how a text might look:

The scammer wants a "redelivery fee", which is just a way to get your credit card info. They can pretend to be from USPS, FedEx, or UPS.

Amy Nofziger, the director of fraud victim support with AARP, said to get the actual contact info for the company:

If you do think that there’s a problem with your shipping, your package, your item, your bank account ― just call the company at the number you have for them. And just check that way.

What Smishing Texts Look Like

If it's about a free gift and looks like it was sent to a lot of people, it's probably not legit. If it asks for any personal information and wants you to take immediate action to do something, it's probably a smishing text.

You can block and report the smishing texts. Or you can handle them like this TikTok guy.

@danfart I Trolled a Scammer!!!😱 *Texting Random Numbers!* In this Texting Random Numbers, a scammer attempts to hack my bank account. Will I be fooled by this man or will I ruin his day? #comedy #viral #textingstory #prank ♬ original sound - danfart

Can't say the scammer didn't have it coming.