Oh, look, it's a bird! It's a plane! It's another scam!

[mwmisses4289]

When i woke up yesterday morning (Tuesday), I noticed what appeared to be a text from my bank informing me that my atm card had been frozen due to fraud, and to please call this number. Noting the time the text was received by my phone (about 5:15 a.m.), I became suspicious. I decided not to call, but go to my bank in person and speak to someone their.
I left work a few minutes early to get there before they closed. When I got to the teller, I explained the issue, she said let me check. She checked, everything was good. I showed her the text, and she instantly said it was a scam. The bank manager assured me they would not send texts for something that important, it would be a call. They copied the number to report to their scam monitoring department.
So if you get texts purporting to be from your bank at o' dark thirty in the morning saying your account has an issue, don't respond. Go to your bank in person, and sort it out there.

[usonian]

1. Good that you caught it.

Today, I was notified that my cloud services may have expired (not saying which ones), an offer from "rare earth grounding sheets", a vacuum cleaner for choking hazards, luxury pillows from Hilton (if I wanted them, I'd just steal them, no?) and earlier, stuff "held up" at UPS, USPS, and customs.

Click on nothing in messages or email unless you are 100% sure of the sender, and most people don't know how to sniff that out (usually it's a bogus or faked sender ID) So do what you did. Go to the sender either physically, or to their website to check things out. There's always a chatbot/help line.

So far, I have gotten past chatbots with the word "HUMAN"
And most businesses and institutions have a call center somewhere in this world active 24 hours a day (the chatbot never sleeps, but is usually useless. I don't know if it escalates when you ask it if something you got is fraudulent)

Here are some good articles on email and message best practices (from the FTC)
How To Recognize and Avoid Phishing Scams
https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/how-recognize-avoid-phishing-scams

And specifically for messages
How to Recognize and Report Spam Text Messages
https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/how-recognize-report-spam-text-messages

[mwmisses4289]

6. Thanks for the links.

[FakeNoose]

2. Another suggestion is that scam messages such as the one you received often provide a link

NEVER click on that link, never go to their website or give any information to the sender.

You did exactly the right thing, but a lot of people are naive and trusting. A lot of us don't stop to think about whether this message makes sense. Be suspicious of any oddball message, and especially anything that asks you to click on a link.

[mwmisses4289]

7. This one didn't have a link, just a phone number,

but the implication was that I needed to take care of this right now!

[Norrrm]

3. Call the legitimate number that is on the back of your card.

If the scammers want payment:::

Use this. Be generous. Be very slow, methodical, and thorough. Use up their time.
PIN is 5311

[popsdenver]

4. Bingo

If it comes your way on an email, text, or phone call do not call the number on the email, message, or phone call, but call the bank with the number on the back of your credit card......

[calimary]

5. ALWAYS good advice!