‘Free phone’ scams are becoming more common and now there’s a new one we need to pay attention to. With this version, a new phone It is left on your doorstep and, unusually, the scammer didn’t use your money to buy it.
This is just the latest in a long line of scams involving new phones delivered to your home…
The classic ‘free phone’ scam
The classic free phone scam is one in which the scammer manages to impersonate you to your mobile operator and request a new phone. Your carrier ships the phone to your address, and since the scammer knows it’s coming, they’ll try to hang out near your house to get to the package before you.
It is essentially a form of hacking where the scammer knows in advance what is in the package and when it will arrive, and in this case it is the scammer who gets the phone for free.
You can limit the risks of this by ensuring you use 2FA protections on your mobile account and indeed all other accounts where they are available.
Another classic is where have After ordering a phone, you apparently receive a call from the company that supplies it, stating that they accidentally sent you the wrong phone and giving you instructions on how to return it. In fact, you are sending your new phone to the scammer.
The latest ‘free phone’ scam
CNET reports on a new type of free phone scam that I haven’t encountered before.
In this version, a package addressed to you arrives at your door containing a phone you didn’t order. They hope that some people will be grateful for their apparent luck and activate the phone by setting it up with all their personal data.
Activate the phone and enter your personal information. Then it crashes, freezes and goes dark. Now you’re a warning with a useless phone and a scammer has your personal information.
The article describes some other phone scams that exist. Expert advice is that if you receive an unexpected package, do not interact with its contents.
“Engaging means plugging it in, turning it on, scanning a QR code or inserting a SIM card,” says Coughlin. “Any one of them can give a scammer access to your accounts, your identity or your phone number.”
He adds: “We’ve seen cheap phones preloaded with malware, SIM cards designed to direct fraudulent activity through your name, and QR codes that place credential-stealing pages on your device the moment you scan them. So leave it alone.”
Have you come across any other particularly creative or devious scams? Please share in the comments.
Photo by James Molnar in unpack
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