11 Call for Action Alert: Text message scam about wire transfer

We want to warn you about how scammers continue to trick us in different ways. A viewer named Tom reached out to us about a recent scam. Tom got a text message saying he had hundreds of dollars wired to him. The text was sent from an email address and the message claimed to be from Western Union, which is a financial service that allows you to send money to other people. The text read, "$255.00 transfer" was "ready to pick up" and that he needed to click on a link that was provided in the text. It even listed a transfer number and a link.

He'd done wire transfers so, "I thought it looked familiar because we've done this before but we were never notified by text message," Tom told me. "Usually, it was some other form like a telephone call or an email."

Tom wasn't expecting any payments or money transfers. His wife got a similar text message, too. Thankfully, he got suspicious and listened to his gut. He called Western Union right away and they confirmed this is nothing more than a scam. Tom didn't click any of the links and didn't respond to the text.

"It looked very professional, but it didn't look right," said Tom. "It's another one of those cases where if it looks good, or too good to be true, it probably is."

to read the full article through our news partners at The Gazette.