Getting scam calls, texts or messages can be annoying, however these forms of contact can look real to the point that you are unsure if you have or have not picked up your package from the warehouse.
Navigating these schemes can sometimes be difficult which is why it is important to identify, discern and report when faced with these cons.
“There is no way to definitively stop them but users can take some care in terms of looking at the intent of the message. If the intent of the message seems outlandish or a ‘large financial reward’ is promised or something unrealistic, you should assume that it’s a scam” Dr. Golden Richard said.
While it is not possible to stop scammers or bots from reaching you to gain your personal information, there are some common scams that you should be aware of.
These scams include but are not limited to angler fishing, smishing and email phishing.
Angler phishing scams are instances when scammers contact you through social media promising a big reward or posing as ‘sugar daddies’ who desire to take care of you financially.
Smishing scams happen via text or phone calls. Often these scams can come in many forms some stating that they want to hire you or that you have not picked up a package from ‘the warehouse’ or you posing as tech support looking to help you.
Finally, there are email phishing scams in which scammers pretend to be employees of recognizable companies, such as PayPal for example, to gain access to your banking or other forms of personal information.
To discern fraudulent schemes, there are a couple of things you can do: the first is to check if the words in the message you are receiving are spelled correctly.
Often, scammers will put an r and n together to make an account or website ‘look official’ since they can not use the existing IP of the companies they are trying to imitate. Spelling mistakes often appear in these messages which can be a dead giveaway.
The second thing is to note that companies don’t contact their customers directly to update personal information, usually a notification would be sent.
With social media scams, it is best to block accounts that you don’t know or are not following anyone you know to keep from getting unwanted messages from potential scammers.
Sometimes you might see messages in your LSU inbox that look like an email phishing scam, those are tests that LSU sends out to ensure that students, faculty, and staff know not to entertain anything fishy.
“LSU sometimes sends out test emails to see…if they do the bad stuff, but in general it is a very difficult problem,” Richard said.
While there is not any way to stop scammers from contacting you it is important to know details and how scammers work to keep from falling into the trap of phishing and spoofing scams.
As technology becomes better, scammers can use artificial intelligence to revise and edit their messages before being sent out, so if it is coming from an unknown source it is likely a scam.