The Flora Police Department released information regarding phishing scams that occur when criminals attempt to influence their victims to open harmful links, emails or attachments that could request personal information or infect their devices.
The phishing messages typically are received in the form of an email, text, direct message on social media or phone call and are often designed to look as if they are being received from a trusted person or organization in an attempt to elicit a response.
The department urged community members to look for common signs of a phishing scam, such as urgent or emotionally appealing language, especially messages that claim dire consequences for not responding immediately, requests to send personal and financial information, untrusted shortened URLs, incorrect email addresses or links, poor grammar or misspellings. The department stated that in the era of artificial intelligence, some emails may have perfect grammar and spelling and urged community members to ensure they look for the other warning signs.
Those who suspect phishing are encouraged to resist the temptation to click on links or attachments that may seem too good to be true that may be utilized to access personal information. Community members should report the phish to protect themselves and others, such as reporting the email, message or other communication or reporting the communication as spam to ensure that similar messages from the sender are flagged immediately.
Community members are also encouraged to delete the message. The department stated that victims should never reply or click on any attachment or link, including any “unsubscribe” link from a suspicious message and should just delete the message.
If you think it could be real, don’t click on any link or call any number in the message. Look up another way to contact the company or person directly:
- Go to the company’s website and capture their contact information from the verified website.
- Search for the site in your web browser or type the address yourself if you’re sure you know it.
- Use another way to reach the person to confirm whether they contacted you. For example, if you get a strange message from your friend on Facebook, and you have their phone number, text or call them to ask if they sent the message.
The department stated that reports of suspicious emails may be forwarded to the Federal Trade Commission at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. For more serious cases involving fraud or scams, reports can be filed to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov.
Below are four examples of phishing emails that could be received courtesy of the Flora Police Department.
