“ hi dad “, ” Hello Mom“. In these last few weeks, thousands of French have been the target of these text messages that appear to be from their children, but are actually written by scammers.
This new fraud, the authorities called it “Scam for the child who has a problem with his cell phone”. It consists of making a parent believe that one of their children no longer has access to the presumably broken, stolen or lost cell phone, as reported by Le Figaro.
Request money to buy a new phone
After writing “Hi dad” OR “Hello Mom”, the interlocutor then asks the recipient to contact him on a new number. Sometimes it directly sends a link that redirects to a new chat on the WhatsApp messaging app. When the victim is hooked, the scammer starts a discussion about the message. After a few minutes they ask for money to buy a new phone or repay a debt via prepaid coupons.
To target you, scammers get personal data available on the black market after e-commerce sites are hacked. This is how the perpetrators of these scams are able to target their victims. From there, criminals invest in tools that are legal and used by traditional companies for mass sending of SMS and emails.
On the website cybermalveillance.gouv.fr the authorities recommend: “Do not answer”, “never send money before formally identifying your interlocutor” AND “call your child directly on his phone number to confirm the message received”. And for good reason, this fraud made more money 11,000 victims in Australia, who lost a total of 7.2 million dollars due to this scam, according to the local police.
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Source: Madmoizelle

Mary Crossley is an author at “The Fashion Vibes”. She is a seasoned journalist who is dedicated to delivering the latest news to her readers. With a keen sense of what’s important, Mary covers a wide range of topics, from politics to lifestyle and everything in between.