Last Tuesday evening, Carolina Sörmvall received an SMS with a link to pay SEK 15 in shipping fee for a package. The message came from “PostNord” and in her phone it automatically ended up in an SMS thread where Postnord had previously announced that her package had arrived.
There was therefore no reason for her to believe that it would not come from the company.
– I was close to going for it, because you don’t really think about where you press when you’re sure it’s the right sender, she says.
But once she clicked on the link, Carolina Sörmvall and her partner realized that she had been directed to a scam page. Luckily, she didn’t fill in any information and didn’t lose any money.
“Not unusual”
This approach is not unusual at all, says Victoria Wagman, CEO of 46 Elks, a texting provider for businesses.
– In SMS technology, you can send SMS in two formats: Either from a number or from a text string, explains Victoria Wagman.
When companies send out text messages, there is often no number linked to the sender. Serious SMS providers block the possibility for anyone to send SMS from Swedish authorities and companies.
But if fraudsters use, for example, new or foreign SMS providers, that filter is not always available.
– If I use an SMS provider to send you a message from the word “Postnord”, your phone will think it comes from Postnord and sort it as such, says Victoria Wagman and continues:
– But this is something that can affect all companies.
At Postnord, they are aware of the scam. Earlier in November, the company went out and warned that it was “high season for hoax text messages” before Christmas.
– We are constantly working to detect and warn our customers about ongoing scams, says Postnord’s press service to SVT.
Watch Victoria Wagman explain how the scammers do it in the clip above.