The scammers who telephone unsuspecting consumers and sweet-talk or menace money out of them have turned to text messages to retrieve personal or credit card information, which themselves have a lucrative resale value.
Recent messages received by Santa Barbarans say the Department of Motor Vehicles has their $922 refund, or that the U.S. Postal Service or FedEx has their package, or that the Employment Development Department needs some information to send that check, or that Netflix has a free year's subscription for you — but by pressing the blue link in the text, the consumer is instead connected to scammers just "phishing" for information or cash.
"This is absolutely the latest scam going on," said Sergeant Ethan Ragsdale of the Santa Barbara Police Department. The thieves are after credit card information most often, he said, and they pretend a refund is coming, or that the account needs to be charged, and that they need the credit card information to give a "refund" or to "cancel payment."