'It's the most wonderful time of the year' for text scams
MIAMI - It's the most wonderful time of the year for thieves to target your identity. This is prime season for texting scams.
It's because you're more likely to be busy and distracted that thieves see the holiday season as a great time to strike. Last holiday season nearly 75 percent of Americans were targeted by scams.
The text scams that were the most popular last year included delivery scams, prompting you to click a link to provide personal information or even money so their package can be delivered. Also fake fraud alerts, by thieves posing as your bank. Finally, verification scams such as asking you to verify your Amazon account so you can continue shopping.
"They're really hoping that they're going to catch you off guard and you want to just make that problem go away, and you react so quickly. But in reality, once you get those, that's exactly when you need to stop yourself and slow down because they're really just trying to catch you," said George Cray, a senior VP at iconectiv, a supplier of network management services.
So how can you protect yourself?
Always validate a message that's asking for money or your personal information, go directly to the source. Also, never click on a link in a text, it opens you up to phishing.
So what do you do if you already messed up and you fell for a scam? First, change all your passwords. Next contact companies to put a freeze on your credit and if you downloaded any software, delete it right away.