Recognising an SMS scam
Smishing trades on urgency and on trust in a familiar brand. Yet the giveaways are almost always the same.
Smishing — a contraction of SMS and phishing — means impersonating a known organisation to obtain your credentials, your bank details or a payment. The scenarios change with the seasons, but the mechanics are stable: manufactured urgency, a link to a page imitating an official site, and a request for information no legitimate organisation would ever make by text.
The signs common to all of these frauds
- •Disproportionate urgency: a few hours to act, or you lose a parcel, a refund or an entitlement.
- •A link that does not point to the organisation's official domain, often shortened or subtly misspelled.
- •A request for bank details, a code received by SMS, or a password — none of which any organisation asks for by message.
- •A trivial sum to pay, one to three euros, whose only purpose is to capture your card number.
- •Clumsy phrasing, odd punctuation, or no personalisation at all.
The pending-parcel scam
The most widespread scenario, because it is almost always right.
How to recognise itThe carte Vitale scam
A public service impersonated, because everyone trusts it.
How to recognise itThe bogus bank adviser scam
The costliest one, because it runs through a convincing human being.
How to recognise itThe fine and tax scam
Two opposite variants: fear of a penalty, or the lure of a refund.
How to recognise itThe training account scam
Here the rule is simple: all soliciting is illegal, so every message is suspect.
How to recognise itReport rather than delete
Forward the message to 33700, free of charge, then reply with the sender's number when the service asks for it. Deleting the text protects you; reporting it protects everyone else. Where harm has occurred, cybermalveillance.gouv.fr points to the right procedure.
Report an unwanted SMSOne necessary clarification
Mon SMS Gratuit is not affiliated with any of the organisations named on these pages; they appear only because fraudsters impersonate them. Our service is also reserved for personal, one-off sending: it sends no campaigns and no commercial messages, and cannot be the source of a fraudulent SMS sent in our name or anyone else's.
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