REGINA -- Following a number of recent stories about scammers trying to steal our information through text message schemes, a few of our viewers, including Jordan, were #JustCurious about how they get our cell phone numbers to begin with? It’s not like there’s an old school book or a website where we’re all listed, right?
SaskTel calls this type of fraud scheme “smishing”, like phishing, but with SMS on your phone.
Here’s how it works:
After finding a target area, in this case Saskatchewan, the fraudster would look for the two area codes – 306 and 639.
Then, they’re looking for the NXX, which is telephone company speak for the next three numbers in the sequence. Those sets of numbers go into a computer, and they start sending those pesky information seeking messages to us from 0000 to 9999. The video above will explain that a little better.
What we don’t know, is how to stop them entirely.
Bell, which owns CTV News, offers up a few suggestions on its website Support.Bell.ca.
SaskTel does too at support.sasktel.com.
Their message to you: Be skeptical. Follow up before you click and offer up any of your information.
