Fake text messages claiming to be from Canada’s wireless carriers offering a refund continue to target wireless users in the country.
These messages usually mention you have a refund waiting for you and to receive it, all you have to do is sign into your online banking to initiate the Interac e-Transfer. Sounds tempting right? But once you sign in, nefarious individuals will have your credentials for online banking. Yikes.
The latest text message refund scam we received reads, “Dear, You have an refund from ROGERS, please allow 48. Click here to proceed: http://nou1mail.com/”, sent by number 867-457-5166.
Savvy individuals will know this is a bogus text message, given its humorous attempt at trying to sound like an official message from Rogers. Looks like somebody skipped a Rosetta Stone lesson or two.
If you click on the URL, mobile Safari and Chrome warn it’s a ‘deceptive website’ and to not proceed. But if you ignore the warnings, you’re presented with the following, which looks like an official page to accept an Interac e-Transfer:
Clicking through to TD Canada, for example, you see this, which could easily fool somebody who isn’t paying attention to their browser URL:
This is what the legitimate TD Canada sign in page looks like:
According to Rogers, if you’ve received a suspicious text from the company, here’s what to do:
Do NOT respond to the text message, provide personal information to the sender, or click on any links or attachments included in the message. Instead, make sure you collect the following information:
The number that sent the text message
The contents of the text message
Rogers says to then report the incident to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre online or by phone.
Again, while savvy users will know these are bogus texts, some will fall through the cracks and succumb to the allure of getting a refund from Rogers. Wireless bills are expensive–who doesn’t want some money back, right?
Last fall, SaskTel sent out a warning to customers of a similar scam targeting its customers, explaining them to be wary of any text messages received claiming a refund was available.
