Scammers are sending deceptive text messages to children, addressing them by the wrong name in an attempt to start a conversation and gather personal information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One Lafayette teenager received a message saying, \u201cHi, Rose. This is Elizabeth. Sorry to bother you, just trying to reach out to see how you\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since the teen\u2019s name isn\u2019t Rose, it seemed like an innocent mistake. Most people might reply, \u201cSorry, wrong number,\u201d which is exactly what the scammers are hoping for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once a child responds, the scammer continues the conversation, attempting to befriend them and eventually gather personal details.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A concerned mother of a 13-year-old who was targeted by this scam is warning other parents to be cautious about who their children are messaging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey\u2019ll say, \u2018Oh, what\u2019s your name? What school do you go to?\u2019 and then pretend they\u2019re in the same grade,\u201d the mother explained. \u201cThey try to befriend the kids before getting their personal or family information.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fortunately, the 13-year-old blocked the unknown number.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen I saw the text on my daughter\u2019s phone, I was angry at first\u2014how did they get her number?\u201d the mother said. \u201cBut that anger quickly turned to fear. If this is happening to my daughter, how many other kids are being targeted, and how many parents are even aware of it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To protect your child from this scam, parents should regularly monitor their child\u2019s messages and discuss the dangers of responding to unknown numbers. Blocking texts and calls from unknown numbers in your child\u2019s phone settings can also help prevent scam messages from reaching them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Scammers are sending deceptive text messages to children, addressing them by the wrong name in an attempt to start a conversation and gather personal information. One Lafayette teenager received a message saying, \u201cHi, Rose. This is Elizabeth. Sorry to bother you, just trying to reach out to see how you\u2019re doing.\u201d Since the teen\u2019s name […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4619,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,116,166],"tags":[33,43,189],"class_list":["post-4618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-awareness","category-scammer-news","category-text-scam","tag-scam-awareness","tag-scammers","tag-text-message-scam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4618"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4620,"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4618\/revisions\/4620"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}