Host Intro: In today’s day and age everyone utilizes their cell phones and other technology as means of communication, entertainment, and much more. What happens when something we depend on so much is used as a vehicle to attempt to trick and damage us? Leonard Melnik spoke with several individuals pertaining to their experiences with scam messages.
TRACK: I am sitting with Ben Hecker on the MTA, he is a game design major at NYU who has recently released his own video game and has been telling me about a really fun social game he deployed in his class. While the FCC warns that text scams are on the rise, that does not seem so to Ben.
ACT: BEN: Um ,scam texts I mean they are a thing. They aren’t a big deal for me at least, they are usually in the form of “Your venmo account got signed into recently, click this link to fix it”. But every time I get the message the phone number is different and the link is really sketchy looking.
TRACK: What Ben has just described is called smishing, it is a type of attack where the scammer will disguise themselves as a legitimate entity and try to trick the victim. According to BleepingComputer there has been an exponential rise in this type of attack.
TRACK: While he is very aware of scams and won’t fall for one easily, Ben also does not have a lot of public information that could be used in such scams.
ACT: BEN : But also I tend to be more careful on the internet and can imagine that other people who are less careful probably get a lot more scam stuff because their information is more out there.
TRACK: Now I am on Sheepshead Bay, speaking to Nicole who is a pre-med student. She shares a similar experience with Ben, and personally noticed a trend opposite to the FCC.
ACT: NICOLE: I actually noticed a decrease in scam messages when I purchased my new phone.
TRACK: While maybe her new phone is better at deducting scams, she also experienced Smishing attacks
ACT: NICOLE: Sometimes the messages tried to fake a company like AT&T
TRACK: When I asked her what the texts usually contained, she told me that they usually provide some sort of positive incentive.
ACT: NICOLE: It usually included a small paragraph like “Claim your prize now!” and then a link to some obscure website that I never clicked.
TRACK: While she had never clicked on one of the links, I asked her if she ever responded to the texts
ACT: NICOLE: No never, actually on one occasion I simply wrote “Shut up”.
TRACK: I am now sitting next to Massoud outside of his next class. He is pretty hungry but does not have time to run out and go get food between his classes. I was able to get a few words from him on any trends and what he has noticed about scam texts.
ACT: Massoud: I have seen them go up, a lot of people told me they have been getting more and shown me their scam text. I have gotten a lot of them so they have definitely gone up.
TRACK: When I asked him to give me an example of spam/scam texts. He brought up exactly what Nicole and Ben brought up, smishing.
ACT: Massoud: One example I have gotten is a lot of texts saying “Your account has been compromised” from Chase or Citibank. I’ve got TD so it’s definitely a total scam.
TRACK: When I asked him if he had ever responded to scam texts, he had an understandable response.
ACT: Massoud: No, no, don’t want to risk that.
OUTRO: While we may be warned about rising rates of scam texts and rising losses. The experience will vary from individual to individual, some may perceive these texts as a joke. Meanwhile for others it could scare them into taking false actions. Regardless it is important to keep up with modern threats to make sure you and your loved ones are safe online. In the meanwhile, we can laugh at funny texts together. This is Leonard Melnik, signing off.
Some of the script that didn’t make it to the final version..
While Ben and others may know better than to trust these messages, our elders may not be as aware. In 2021 it was estimated that scam texts cost Americans over 10 billion (86 million in 2020), and these are just the reported numbers. When I spoke to Nicole she told me how her family was almost tricked.
TRACK: Unfortunately I could not get an interview with anyone who had been directly scammed, even though I was able to speak with them off record. The common consensus seemed to be scare tactics and urgency, some of the scams would threaten their future if they did not take immediate action and in the moment were unable to think clearly.
TRACK: Some individuals have reported being scammed on AARP’s scam tracker tool, where they explained how someone texted them pretending to be an uncle who was in need of money, and that person lost over a thousand dollars.