Everything You Need to Know About Scam Alerts

Cybercrime and digital fraud are one of the biggest threats to eCommerce, online banking, and other facets of our digital lives. Scammers target people’s online accounts, credit card details, and personal information through phishing attempts and fraudulent account access. To keep customers secure, companies are utilizing increased cybersecurity measures like SMS authentication and scam alerts.

But with the number of fraud cases growing, it’s harder to contact and engage with customers about fraud-related activity through traditional channels. Amid overwhelmed call-center volumes, SMS and chat alerts are a convenient and efficient way for businesses to quickly communicate with their customers. We’ll see how they work and how they effectively prevent fraud and protect customer information.

What Are Scam Alerts? 

These are messages sent to notify the recipient of a potential breach of their account or warn them of fraud and scams that they may be exposed to. Scam warnings come in different forms—SMS, chat messages, emails, or automated phone calls, but they all serve to protect the recipient against common text scams or targeted fraud attempts.

Alerts are one of the most effective ways of combating potential fraud before it happens if you don't have a text blocker downloaded on your device.

What Are Potential Red Flags or Signs of a Scam?

To keep yourself safe, don’t respond to an email or message if you don’t know the sender, and never give any personal or sensitive information. When in doubt, contact the business or bank directly. Other common signs of a scam include:

Irrelevant to You

If you receive a message from an unknown sender, or even one that looks like it’s coming from a source you know (number spoofing) but has information completely irrelevant to you, chances are it’s a scam.

Spelling and Grammatical Mistakes 

Another red flag is grammatical or spelling errors that are purported to come from a business or organization. You may wonder why scammers would be so careless, but the point is to hook the most gullible and not waste time with those who will sniff out the con.

Unusual or International Phone Numbers

Sometimes, there are legitimate reasons why you may be getting a text message from a foreign phone number or one that’s different from your local standard. But, you should immediately have your guard up and consider it suspicious from the get-go.

Contain a Link or Attachment 

MMS, unlike SMS, allows people to send media as text messages to their phones. While an image or video can’t harm your phone, don’t download anything that comes from an unknown source—and don’t click a link.

Contain a Refund Offer 

Everyone likes getting money back, but any message that is offering to send you back a charge (unless you’ve actually requested one) is trying to get you to part with your money.

Claiming You’ve Won Something 

Unless you’ve actually entered some giveaway or contest, any message promising you a prize or even just a heavily discounted item is highly likely to be a scam. Treat them like the spam emails you receive and ignore them.

Urgent Tone or Requesting Immediate Action

Common scams involve a message that claims to be from the tax authorities or some other government body, your bank, or even a family member or friend in crisis. They ask you to quickly take an action to avoid penalties or consequences. 

Remember, when in doubt, you can perform a scam website check to see if others have flagged a similar scam. A scammer alert website can list common scams making the rounds.

Types of Scam Warnings 

Account Login 

If a user logs into their account from an unusual location or an unrecognized device, they may receive an alert informing them that their login information may have been compromised. This type of alert protects users from unauthorized account access before it can do damage.

Credit or Debit Card Purchases

When irregular purchase patterns are noticed such as a purchase made outside a cardholder’s regular location or at an unusual time, a credit card company or bank will alert fraud and ask the customer to verify the purchase.

Phishing Alert 

Scammers often create fake webpages or emails that purport to be from a legitimate business to try and get login details. An SMS phishing alert warns users of potentially fake text messages that are making their way around.

Mass Alerts

With mass texting, businesses can warn all their customers at once of scams that are targeting them or to be careful of fraudulent pages or contacts trying to impersonate them. These types of alerts can notify people of scams to watch out for even before they’ve been targeted.

Credit Bureau Fraud Alert 

A fraud alert on credit reports is a different kind of alert that you can set up yourself, which warns creditors that you may have been a victim of identity theft or fraud. This will notify creditors to take extra precautions and make it harder for identity thieves to get credit in your name.

It’s also noteworthy to distinguish it from a spam alert, which warns people of unrelated spam text messages that is being sent out under the business’s name.

What Are the Benefits of Sending Alerts for Scam?

Sending timely alerts protects not just your customers, but your business. Stolen or compromised credentials are the most common cause of a data breach and can cost a business a lot of money and time in rectifying the situation. With scam warnings, you can engage with your customers in real time, quickly address fraud inquiries, and resolve potential cases, especially in high volumes. 

Responsive 

SMS alerts and chat messages immediately reach their recipient and have a much higher open and response rate than email.

Cost-Effective 

Chat messages are a much cheaper channel of communication with your customers than a phone call, especially internationally, and much more effective than email.

Secure 

Chat platforms like WhatsApp feature multi-factor authentication, business verification, and end-to-end encryption, keeping sensitive commercial and customer data secure.

How Are Alerts Sent via Chat?

One of the most impactful ways to warn customers of scams is via chat. People are used to social media interactions and mobile chat applications like WhatsApp and Viber are now great platforms for engaging with customers on the go. 

To do so, businesses can register on SMS platforms like Dexatel. Then, using Viber Business messages or the WhatsApp Business API, businesses can start messaging their customers and better alert against fraud. This can result in a much quicker reaction time and prevent fraudulent activity.

While chat platforms can be used to warn customers of different types of scams going on, users have to be careful, as chat platforms are also often used by scammers. Recipients should always check that the message is coming from a legitimate business account.

How to Set Up Alerts for Scam

To set up alerts, businesses can connect to Dexatel’s SMS API and automate their messaging. You can integrate different platforms, applications, and systems so that when a potential scam is detected an alert is automatically sent.

Scam Warnings with Dexatel 

Dexatel is a leading business text messaging provider that makes it easy to immediately contact your customers wherever they are and get a response. Dexatel is also a bulk SMS service provider, meaning that you can send out bulk messages to all your customers in an instant. Our platform integrates directly with your CRM, so you can send out reminders, alerts, and other customer communication in a breeze.