Be wary if you receive a text from your child saying their phone is out of service and they urgently need money! This is a scam that is wreaking havoc in France, after having been rampant in other countries.

Be wary if you receive a text from your child saying their phone is out of service and they urgently need money! This is a scam that is wreaking havoc in France, after having been rampant in other countries.

Pirates are constantly doubling their ingenuity to trap their victims and extract money from them. Fake Booking reservations, fraudulent posts on Facebook, booby-trapped URLs, fake login pages, fake Netflix messages… All means are good to scam people! And the latest one is particularly vicious.

Its principle is simple and formidable. The victim receives a text message from her alleged child having lost her cell phone – theft, loss, device broken, etc. – and urgently asking for money to replace her device. A distressing situation that encourages you to act without thinking and dive into the trap…

This scam has already caused quite a bit of damage in Australia, with total damage estimated at approximately $7.2 million for 11,000 victims in 2022. Also very common in Anglo-Saxon countries, it arrived in France at the end of 2022 and is experiencing a resurgence today, with pseveral dozen reports per week sent to the cybermalveillance.gouv.fr platform, with in some cases damage amounting to several thousand euros.

SMS My phone is broken: the family emergency scam

The scam takes place in several stages which follow a very specific pattern. First of all, the victim receives a first text message from their “child” mentioning a problem with their phone, which immediately worries them, and the emotion prevents them from thinking correctly. The usurper then asks him to contact him at a new number. The most common messages are “Hello mom/dad, my phone is broken. This is my new phone number” Or “Hello mom/dad. I lost my phone, can you send me a WhatsApp message to this number?” Once the victim takes the bait, he urgently asks for money to replace the smartphone or for other unexpected expenses, while promising to reimburse her quickly once he can connect to his phone. banking application – money whose color, of course, it will never see again.

This is the “family emergency” process, in which the hacker pretends to be a loved one in a delicate situation. Once a victim has bitten, he asks for money quickly in order to get out of trouble: problems abroad, illness, theft, aggression… In short, a whole bunch of justifications to explain why he cannot speak on the phone or using his usual device, and he needs money quickly. The scammer may also ask for personal information in order to use it to defraud other family members. This type of scam is used for several years with its variant of the “friend in distress” on Facebook and other social networks, using profile spoofing. It is also a very popular technique when hacking emails. France also suffered a wave of this kind in 2018 via Orange.Fr.

SMS scams: how to detect them?

Scammers are going further and further into dishonesty and do not hesitate to set up much more terrifying variants of “family emergency”. Some go so far as to make victims believe that one of their loved ones has been kidnapped. and demand a ransom. In truth, this is a new method of exploiting spoofing, a technique which consists of seizing the telephone information or the digital identity of a person or company (operator, bank, etc.) in order to make the victim believe that they are receiving a call from them. It is generally very effective with elderly people, who are generally less comfortable with technology.

In case you receive a message or call like this, try to stay calm and call the person at their usual number, even if they say they can’t use it. Typically, she will answer the phone and assure you that the request did not come from her. If she doesn’t respond, contact someone who might be with her. This will generally be enough to dispel your doubts, including in the case of spoofing with kidnapping. The important thing is really not to rush! In case of attempted fraud, report it to the platform Signal Spam – just register for free – or that of the government Pharos. If the scammer has achieved his goals, contact the authorities via the platform Cybercrime or directly to a police station to file a complaint. Be sure to keep evidence, especially messages received.