Text, call and email scams, page 3
Real examples of the texts, calls, and emails going around right now, each with a clear verdict, the red flags to spot, and exactly what to do. Free.
USPS package text
Yes. The Postal Service does not text you out of the blue: USPS tracking is something you have to sign up for first, using the tracking number of a parcel you already know about. It also sends from five-digit short codes, not from a mobile number or an email address. A delivery text you did not ask for, from a number that looks like a phone, is smishing aimed at your card.
IRS call
Yes. The IRS states it plainly: "We never call to demand payment now, threaten arrest or inform you of a refund." First contact comes by post, and a real tax matter survives you hanging up and checking. This is the oldest impersonation scam still running, because the fear it borrows is real even when the caller is not.
DMV text
Yes. State DMVs do not text a link to pay a fine or unlock a licence. The FTC issued a consumer alert about this exact campaign in July 2025: scammers posing as the DMV of states all over the country, demanding payment for an "overdue traffic ticket". It is the same machinery as the unpaid-toll texts that came before it, pointed at a new authority.
PayPal scam
Usually a scam, and PayPal gives you a fast way to tell. It never opens with an impersonal greeting: its own guidance is that it never says things like "Dear user" or "Hello PayPal member", because real messages carry the full name on your account. Everything else follows from that, since a message that does not know who you are was not sent by a company that does.
Venmo scam
Usually a scam, and the two most common shapes are opposites. One frightens you, an alert about unusual activity with a deadline to verify. The other flatters you, money arriving from a stranger who then asks for it back. Both end with you moving money or handing over a code, and Venmo settles neither by text: your real balance and history live in the app.
Zelle fake alert
The alert is bait and the call is the attack. The text exists only to make you reply, so that the call which follows is expected rather than suspicious. Then comes the instruction the whole thing was built around: send money to yourself with Zelle to cancel the fraud. There is no such mechanism. A Zelle payment sends money away from you, and "sending it to yourself" means sending it to a number the caller controls.
Amazon sign-in email
Almost certainly a scam, and the safest habit costs nothing: never resolve an Amazon alert from the message itself. Open the app or type amazon.com and look at Your Orders and Your Account. A genuine sign-in problem is visible there, and a fake one leaves no trace, which is the entire test.
FedEx text
Usually yes. FedEx states it plainly: it does not request personal information about your account credentials or identity through unsolicited mail, email or text. So a message asking you to pay a small fee or confirm details through a link is not a delivery problem, it is a card-harvesting page wearing a delivery problem's clothes.
Accidental payment scam
Do not send it back yourself. An unexpected payment from a stranger is not a windfall and usually not a mistake: the money often came from a stolen card or a hacked account, so it will be reversed later. If you have refunded it by hand in the meantime, the reversal takes the original back and your refund is gone too, leaving you down twice.
Bank of America text
Often yes, and the text is rarely the whole attack. It exists to make you reply or tap, so that a call can follow from someone who now knows you are worried about your account. The safe move never changes: leave the message alone and reach the bank through a number you already had.
Boss gift card scam
Scam. The FTC's rule is absolute and worth holding onto: gift cards are for gifts, not payments, and only a scammer asks to be paid in them. A manager who genuinely needed something bought would not need the numbers off the back read out, and would not need it done before you could walk over and ask.
Fake Cash App support
Scammer. Cash App does not resolve account problems in social media DMs, and the account that answered your complaint found you precisely because you complained in public. Cash App publishes exactly which accounts are its own, which is what makes this one checkable in seconds rather than a matter of instinct.
Coinbase code text
Scam, in every version. Coinbase only generates a code after you start a withdrawal yourself, so an unexpected one means someone is trying to talk you into handing over the real thing. The text is the opening move; the link, the callback number and the call that follows are the same attack.
Crypto giveaway scam
Scam. Nobody doubles your money for sending it first. The FTC puts it plainly: anyone guaranteeing profits or big returns is a scammer, and a payment in cryptocurrency has no legal protections behind it, so once it is sent it is generally gone. The celebrity face and the live stream are production values, not verification.
FB buyer Zelle
Scam, and a well-documented one. Zelle itself describes this attack: a fake email claiming a transaction cannot complete until your account is upgraded, so that you pay for an upgrade that does not exist. No money was ever sent to you. The email is the entire product, and the moment you reimburse the buyer for a fee they never paid, the item and the money are both gone.
Fake Meta DMs
Scammer. Meta does not run support through unsolicited DMs, and the account that messaged you found you because you were visible, not because you were flagged. Meta publishes the addresses its genuine mail comes from, which turns this from a judgement call into something you can check in seconds.
Geek Squad scam
No. It is a refund scam. The structural tell is the forced phone call: the message gives you a phone number and no way to cancel in your own account. A real Best Buy or Geek Squad charge leaves an account trail, a card trail, or both. This fake invoice leaves one working door, the scammer’s phone line.
IG reset email
Phishing, and it arrives in more than one costume: a reset email you did not request, a DM from an "Instagram support" account, or a message from a friend whose account was taken the same way. Every version ends on a replica login page. Instagram's own definition covers all of them, a message or link asking for your personal information, often claiming your account will be banned or deleted if you do not comply.
Jury duty call
Scam. Courts do not ring people to take payment, and the FTC's guidance is blunt about the two things that give this away: real law enforcement will never text or email an arrest warrant, and real officers do not call to say they are about to arrest you. A genuine failure to appear arrives as paper, and it can be checked with the court itself.
McAfee renewal scam
Fake. The giveaway is structural rather than cosmetic: the message gives you a phone number instead of a way to manage the subscription in your own account. The FTC names McAfee as one of the brands this campaign wears, alongside Geek Squad and Norton, and the script is identical in each costume.
Crypto romance scam
Yes, every time. This is pig butchering: the person is not a love interest but a script runner, often working under coercion from a compound in Southeast Asia and rotating through hundreds of targets at once. The romance is the setup. The trading platform it leads to is a stage set that accepts deposits and never really pays out.
Toll text
Yes. The unpaid-toll text is the campaign the FBI put out a public alert about, and it has since been recycled into fake DMV notices using the same machinery. Real toll agencies do not text a stranger a payment link for a few dollars with a same-day deadline. The balance is bait; the card is the target.
UPS fee text
It is a scam. UPS says it never requests payment or personal information through unsolicited text messages. That settles it before you grade the logo or the spelling. The structural tell is the surprise SMS checkout, a tiny delivery or redelivery fee, and a link that moves you away from UPS into a card-harvesting page.
Cash App suspended text
Scam. Cash App does not text you a link to unlock an account, and support only happens if you start it, inside the app or at cash.app/help. The text is the opening move: the link takes your sign-in code, and if you call the number instead, the person who answers wants the same thing. Cash App publishes one support line, and it is inbound only.
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