- #1
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Beware, all. I almost fell for a scam today. Well, to be fair, I fell for it but quickly realized what happened and managed to fix it before anything bad happened.
I posted a Craigslist ad for some random odds and ends that I was giving away, with my phone number for the contact info. A few hours later I received a text message from someone saying they were interested in my ad. They said that they wanted to make sure the ad was real and not fake, so they were sending me a 'verification code'. This should have been a red flag already, but I was in the midst of something so I just gave them the code (received in a separate text).
Then they asked for another code, which I gave again. After the 2nd code something clicked and I said to myself, "Hmm... wait a second...".
After actually reading the text messages with the codes, I realized that the messages were from Google Voice. That's when I stopped what I was doing and started doing some research on this. I quickly came across this kind of scam, where someone will send you a verification code to 'verify your ad is real' and then use that code to make a google voice account with your phone number (presumably for nefarious purposes).
Soon after I started researching this, I also received a message from Verizon (my carrier) with a verification code. I shudder to think what they could have done if they had gotten access to my Verizon account.
Luckily all I had to do at this point was to create my own Google Voice account and connect my phone number to it, since connecting your number automatically removes it from any other account it was linked to (like the scam account).
Long story short, I managed to catch this scam before it did any real harm to me. I'm not sure what kind of damage could have been done had I not quickly caught on to the scam, but I suspect it wouldn't have been fun to fix. Or cheap.
Be safe out there folks!
I posted a Craigslist ad for some random odds and ends that I was giving away, with my phone number for the contact info. A few hours later I received a text message from someone saying they were interested in my ad. They said that they wanted to make sure the ad was real and not fake, so they were sending me a 'verification code'. This should have been a red flag already, but I was in the midst of something so I just gave them the code (received in a separate text).
Then they asked for another code, which I gave again. After the 2nd code something clicked and I said to myself, "Hmm... wait a second...".
After actually reading the text messages with the codes, I realized that the messages were from Google Voice. That's when I stopped what I was doing and started doing some research on this. I quickly came across this kind of scam, where someone will send you a verification code to 'verify your ad is real' and then use that code to make a google voice account with your phone number (presumably for nefarious purposes).
Soon after I started researching this, I also received a message from Verizon (my carrier) with a verification code. I shudder to think what they could have done if they had gotten access to my Verizon account.
Luckily all I had to do at this point was to create my own Google Voice account and connect my phone number to it, since connecting your number automatically removes it from any other account it was linked to (like the scam account).
Long story short, I managed to catch this scam before it did any real harm to me. I'm not sure what kind of damage could have been done had I not quickly caught on to the scam, but I suspect it wouldn't have been fun to fix. Or cheap.
Be safe out there folks!