By REBECCA RUTHERFORD
Los Alamos
For the Los Alamos Daily Post
A good job is hard to find, so what if one falls into your lap? Be careful of any “job offers” via text message, these are scams known as smishing, phishing via text message.
What is smishing? Smishing (SMS phishing) uses deceptive text messages to trick victims into sharing personal information or clicking malicious links, while phishing uses fraudulent emails and fake websites to achieve the same things.
It’s still a phishing scam, just via text message.
In this case, I received the below text messages last week:
One claims to be a job offer from Hotwire, a well-known travel company, and the other claims to be from Target. In both cases, the texts come from random email messages from domains that don’t match the alleged companies making the job offer, the first sign that something is amiss here.
Additionally, why would a big company like this send out text messages offering a job? Super scammy.
Smishing job offer scam texts. Courtesy photo
These jobs both sound way too good to be true, with high pay and great benefits for remote work. Once again, if something seems too good to be true, that’s because it is! These, and any other texted job offers, are total scams.
How to protect yourself from job offer text scams:
Watch out for scams like this, and don’t fall for a fake job offer!
Editor’s note: Rebecca Rutherford works in information technology at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

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