Phishing text messages are being sent to thousands of Americans. Phishing is cybercrime in which the targets are contacted by someone posing as a legitimate institution (in this case AT&T) to lure individuals into providing sensitive data (in this case credit card details).
There are different variations of this text message scam which is falsely represented as coming from AT&T, the American telecommunications company.
Here are two recent examples:
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Payment Issues Phishing Text Message
Here’s one variation of the fake AT&T text message:
SUBJ: Payment Issues. Call 469-677-9995
If you call the number, it will tell you your debit card is locked. You will then be instructed to push one to activate, push 2 to unlock. To unlock your credit card, they will ask you to enter your credit/debit card info.
The numbers from which the message is sent have an area code 410 which is located in eastern Maryland and covers Baltimore, Columbia, Glen Burnie, Ellicott City, and Dundalk.
The numbers include:
- 1410100002
- 1410100010
- 1410200506
- 1410200606
If you receive this message, you should delete it immediately.
Payment Unsuccessful Phishing Text Message
Another variation of the AT&T Phishing Text Message Scam was reported, in which you are asked to call a different number. The message looks like this:
SUBJ: Unsuccessful payment.Call 9312863074.
This time the numbers you are requested to call vary and include:
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- 2192490568
- 2192490573
- 3462501003
- 4422850127
- 6616893381
- 6616893383
- 7076618028
- 7076618029
- 8282636356
- 8285430011
- 9097688410
- 9097688411
- 9312863084
If you call some of theses numbers, you will get a message that this is not a working number. Probably these are numbers which have already been reported and blocked by the phone company. But the scammers are constantly using new numbers, so it is important to recognize this scam and how it works and not just be satisfied with blocking the numbers.
Others numbers will lead you to a machine which will ask you for your card information in order to “unlock” your debit card.
The message is sent from different numbers, including:
- 2314596189
- 8643432315
Some people reported receiving this message from a non-valid phone number, which is missing a digit. These numbers include:
- 410100004
- 410200501
- 410200502
- 410200503
- 410200516
- 410200865
Many people who have received these messages realized it is a scam because they already successfully made the payment or because they would have expected to receive a real message from AT&T via email and not a suspicious text message.
However, some people pointed out that the scammers seemed to know their payment schedules, which suggests the AT&T accounts may have been hacked. For example, one person wrote:
I did call it and it sure didn’t sound like AT&T, recorded message that just wanted me to reactive my debt card. Hung up before doing anything. This was in line with any of my payment schedules with AT&T which did make me wonder immediately.
To conclude this brief warning regarding “AT&T” Text Messages
This is a scam. AT&T does not communicate with their clients via SMS messages from random numbers.
If you receive a similar text message, you should report it to AT&T and do not call the provided number.
