The U.S. Postal Service is warning Michiganders to be on high alert for “smishing” scams this holiday season.
Smishing scams involve fraudulent text messages claiming to be from the Postal Service, often stating there’s an issue with a package delivery. John Hyatt is with the U.S. Postal Service and says deceptive messages often contain links or prompts requesting sensitive personal information, like passwords or credit card numbers.
“Basically, criminals trying to obtain personally identifying information about a person, such as account, usernames, passwords, dates of birth, credit card numbers, things like that,” Hyatt said.
This past August, the Secret Service issued a warning to Michigan residents about smishing scams and Michigan’s Attorney General has reissued consumer alerts.
Hyatt says if you receive one of these messages, never follow the prompts. He wants postal customers to be aware that they will only receive text messages from the Postal Service if they have gone online and registered for those services.
