Every day, scammers enact thousands of phishing schemes like these, and unfortunately, they often succeed— because they’re clever at disguises.
Lately they’ve been disguising themselves as MetaMask or PayPal, so be mindful if you receive emails from these companies and be sure to investigate the message thoroughly before engaging with it.
The false MetaMask message claims your cryptocurrency wallet is blocked and that if you don’t act immediately by clicking a link and updating your wallet, your money will be lost.
When posing as PayPal, the scammers say BNC Billing has stopped your payment to Binance and provide a fake phone number to call to “contact PayPal”. Of course, when you call the number you just get someone pretending to be from PayPal.
4 tips to protect yourself against phishing scams
Usually, unexpected communications urging you to act quickly, click a link, or call a number are phishing scams. In this instance, scammers reason that if you think they’re PayPal or MetaMask, you’ll click into a fraudulent website or call them. Then they can steal your financial or personal information while pretending to help you with the made-up problem. So this Fraud Friday, we wanted to share these tips to help you protect against these online predators:
1. Take a pause and ask yourself: Do I have an account with this company? Do I recognize the number or email address from which this message came? If you answered “no,” it’s a phishing attempt.
2. If your answer is “yes,” still check it out thoroughly. Get ahold of the company using a number, email or website you know is legitimate.
3. Update your security software to protect your phone and computer from scammers and potential security threats.
4. Perhaps the most important tip to remember: Don’t click on any links. Clicking links from unexpected texts or emails may lead to identity theft or let scammers install malware.