How to avoid political text message scams

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DENVER (KDVR) — The race for the White House continues to heat up with the announcement that Vice President Kamala Harris will now step in for President Joe Biden to face off against former President Donald Trump.

Voters are receiving an onslaught of text messages asking for donations.

“I probably get 15 text messages a day,” one Denver resident told FOX31.

While not all text messages sent from political parties are scams, others are nothing more than ploys to trick passionate voters into providing personal information and money to criminals.

Companies own and sell your information

Cyber security expert Mitch Tanenbaum of Cybercecurity told the FOX31 Problem Solvers that companies get access to cell phone numbers because of information shared online.

“People have shared their phone numbers with a whole bunch of different companies, and those companies sell the numbers,” he said.

Tanenbaum told FOX31 that data brokers have 2,500 different pieces of information on more than 200 million Americans, including age, level of education, what kind of car they drive and income.

Scammers prefer to use text messages because of the lack of security features offered by email. Tanenbaum warns anyone receiving donation texts not to click on links.

“If you don’t respond to these text messages that you get then they will eventually start falling off, because they don’t get any lift out of it,” he said.

Tanenbaum told the Problem Solvers that the simple solution to protect yourself is to go to the chosen candidate’s approved campaign website or your political party’s website and find donation information there.

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Shaul Turner

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