New scam making the rounds in SWFL disguised as text from popular services

There’s now a new scam to watch out for here in Southwest Florida and it comes in a text message.

Text messages will claim to be from Amazon and FedEx, both very popular services, will ask people to take a survey that asks for your credit card information.

Now, there’s a way to determine if this is legitimate or a scam.

The scammers are always refining their game. The goal of these text messages is to get you to click on a link and eventually enter your credit card information.

The messages look pretty good. It says it’s from Amazon and the phone number looks like it’s coming from an Amazon account.

Again, they want you to click on the link. But once you do, they’ve got you. They lead you down a path that eventually asks for your credit card number.

So how can you spot a fake?

The first clue, if you are not expecting anything from a company, an unsolicited message is suspicious, especially if it creates a sense of urgency.

Whenever you see a bit.ly link, you should never just click on it if you don’t know the origins, says Cigent Technology Network Security Engineer Evan Lutz.

Pro tip: You can add a + sign to the end of any bit.ly link to see a preview of where it’s going to redirect you without having to actually follow the link.

The big takeaway, don’t click on a link in text; just open your Amazon account.

If you have a shipment coming your way, it’ll be listed on your account.

One other note: Scammers can spoof any phone number to make it look like a legitimate phone number, so you can never really trust the number on the screen.

Disguising phone numbers is a common tactic of scammers.

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody has joined 41 other attorney generals urging the FCC to find a way to stop this.

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SCAM RESOURCES

• Federal Bureau of Investigation | SCAMS AND SAFETY: Common Fraud Schemes
• Federal Trade Commission | FTC Compliant Assistant
• FL Attorney General Ashley Moody | Internet Fraud
• Federal Bureau of Investigation | Filing a Complaint with the IC3