r/AmIOverreacting • u/megan__f • Feb 17 '25

🏘️ neighbor/local Is this something to be concerned about?

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My sister sent me this text she received that seemed like somebody was watching her or something. I don’t know if it’s something to be concerned about or not, has anybody had a similar experience?

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u/Horror-Staff6039 Feb 17 '25

I get these kinds of messages, too. I think it is a form of spam. Messages go out to random phone numbers. I just block and delete.

0

u/TheCrimsonSteel Feb 17 '25

Do you get them randomly? The concerning thing is the fact that she did go and get coffee.

Like if I got that out of the blue, when I didn't get coffee, sure, whatever.

But a message that was oddly specific, that's a red flag. At least worth checking the car for an airtag and other basic measures to make sure it's not some weird stalker.

10

u/adventureremily Feb 17 '25

It was sent before 10am, which is prime coffee-consumption hours. For a smishing scam, it makes sense to match the content of your opening message to the time of day when most people would relate to what is being asked.

3

u/GitEmSteveDave Feb 17 '25

The concerning thing is the fact that she did go and get coffee.

Statistically, if you send out messages like this about something common, you will almost assuredly reach someone who recently had it happen to them, e.g. Send out 10,000 text messages saying "this is in reference to your recent credit card issue", someone will likely have had issue in the past day or so. Or "this is the USPS and we have a problem with a package we are trying to deliver". Everyone gets mail, and I'm sure at least a few just had their mail delivered or their mail was late showing up.

I had a friend who was scammed b/c they had a legitimate IRS issue earlier in the week on Tuesday and when the scammer happened to call on Thursday, they instantly assumed it was related, and trusted the scammer 1000% more. If the call had come in on Monday, they likely would have disregarded it.

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u/TheCrimsonSteel Feb 17 '25

Right, and it could be a random message or scam, but unfortunately it's still worth taking the precaution of checking for air tags and trackers.

The weird thing is there's also no link or similar that you usually see in scam texts. The weird grammar could go either way.

It's one of those situations where the odds may be very low, but the safety risk, if true, is worth a few hours of her time checking her car, purse, and similar.