CELLPHONE SCAM?
Scams are becoming elaborate with their enticing texts
I was sitting at my desk, the other morning, trying to keep my head in the game. You know those days? Those mornings when you walk a fine line between not enough coffee and one coffee too many?
So there I was, thinking about all the things I needed to do — and doing nothing about any of them — when my cellphone buzzed. A welcome distraction. I eagerly glanced down to see a number — not a name — indicating it was not someone in my contacts list. And underneath a local number, the following message:
“Omg I just got out of a meeting and have the biggest wedgie ever LOL bugging me all morning should of never wear this skirt today it rides up on me causing this wedgie, I hate getting them so annoying. What time is your appointment today?”
Ok, so obviously the first thing I did was laugh. And at risk of sounding old and elitist, I knew it wasn’t anyone I know because of 1) the offensive lack of punctuation/grammar that is the trademark of someone who grew up learning to spell by emoji and 2) the highly cringey use of the highly cringey phrase “should of ” in place of “should have.” I
mean, come on.
That said, I felt for her. One of the great things about no longer being 20 is that I no longer feel like I have to wear something that will give me a wedgie. In fact, I go out of my way to not wear things that will give me wedgies. But I do remember what that was like, so yes, I responded to the text, asking “who is this?”
She replied quickly. She told me her first name, which I won’t share here in case she’s a real live human. She went on to explain that she was trying to text her friend XX, and that she hoped she didn’t gross me out with her wedgie text. I then responded again, wishing her luck with her skirt and her day, to which she responded again, thanking me for understanding, more info about the wedgie. OK, we’re done, I thought. And left it there.
And then I thought about it for a minute. And wondered, why wasn’t her friend XX already in her phone? Why was she punching numbers into a text? If she was close enough to XX to text her about her wedgie, wouldn’t XX be high up in her messages list already?
“It’s totally a scam,” a friend suggested. And I knew she was right. That after all the times I’ve warned my mother not to respond to this kind of email or that kind of text, not to fall for the CRA phone call scam that still makes the rounds (I got that phone call a couple of weeks ago), by responding to the wedgie text, I might have unwittingly triggered something. Did I just grant someone access to my phone? In this day and age of Artificial Intelligence, is it possible for someone to mirror my phone and access my contacts list, bank info and digital wallet? We know that technology exists. But is this a thing that’s happening in the scam world?
So I Googled “wedgie text scam” and while I didn’t find any info about this type of scam in particular, I did learn a lot about wedgie “pranks,” which I would now consider “assaults.” But whatever. I also found out that if I think I’ve been the victim of a phishing scam, I can forward the message to 7726. Which I did. Which probably made the morning of whoever received it.
And then I tried to find out if the number actually belongs to a phone owned by a human. Which, of course, led me down a terrifying hole where I found apps and programs that claim to be able to gather any kind of information about anyone, including phone numbers, addresses, banking info, credit card charges and the like. I left that there, too.
This morning, the friend who suggested it’s probably a scam received the same wedgie message on her phone. But she was savvy enough not to open it.
So let this be a warning: either someone with a local number is having fun pranking local cell numbers or there is a new text scam afoot. It’s easy to become seduced by a wedgie text, I know. But best to be safe and not open it.
‘‘ One of the great things about no longer being 20 is that I no longer feel like I have to wear something that will give me a wedgie. In fact, I go out of my way to not wear things that will give me wedgies.