Watch Out for Scam Text Messages!

Do you remember when you used to get junk mail telling you to send in $100 and claim a massive prize? In most cases, the prize never existed and thousands of people lost their money. We started to see less mail scams because the scams instead went online through email. Scammers love the internet because it makes it so easy anonymously reach so many people. Now, the scammers are taking advantage of people in another way: scam SMS messages. The prevalence of these scams makes it necessary to use a reverse phone directory.

How the SMS Scams Work
There are many different ways that the scammers try to get you online. In some cases, the SMS scammers pretend to be your phone company and ask for account information. Or, they may say that you have won free minutes or another prize so long as you respond to the SMS with a certain code. The town of Statesville was recently bombarded with a mass SMS scam where residents received SMS messages saying that they�d won a prize from Best Buy if they would just reply with a code. The code allowed the scammers to access the victim�s account information and make charges.

The reason that the SMS scams are so successful is because we consider our cell phone numbers private. There aren�t any national cell phone directories so many mistakenly assume that their cell numbers are free from abuse by even telemarketers. Unlike email which is known to be full of spam, we are more trusting of SMS messages which come on our cell phones. The scammers often do a very good job of making the messages seem official and even mimic phone numbers for major companies. In most cases, you should just ignore SMS messages which offer promotions or prizes. But, if you are tempted to claim the prize, always use a reverse cell phone directory to check who the owner is first.

How Reverse Cell Phone Directories Work
A reverse cell phone directory is like the White Pages but backwards; instead of looking up the name of a person, you type in a phone number and will get the owner. Cell phones are not listed in standard phonebooks so these services which find out who is calling from a cell phone are very useful (the reverse cell lookup will also show landlines too). There are some free reverse cell phone lookup services but the most accurate ones will require you to pay a subscription.

Unlike the White Pages which only gets information from the phone companies, reverse cell phone directories keep their own databases and get the information from many diverse sources: phone company records, polling records, lists bought from credit bureaus�

Virtually all SMS scammers want to stay anonymous so they will use a prepaid cell phone which cannot be traced. While the reverse cell phone directory may not help you find out exactly who sent the message in this case, it can let you know that the sender is not who he claims to be. You should alert the authorities if you get any SMS prize offer from a number which shows up as a prepaid cell on the reverse cell lookup. And never give out your personal information via SMS!