Identity thieves are sending text messages to people that appear to come from Costco indicating that your Costco membership will be cancelled unless you click on a link and take a survey in which you are asked for personal information that is used for purposes of identity theft.  Costco has warned people about this on its website.   Phishing text messages such as this which are called smishing use the same techniques to lure you into clicking on links and providing personal information that more conventional phishing emails use, namely they scare you into acting quickly in order to avoid a major problem.   It can sometimes be difficult to determine when you get a text message such as the phony Costco text message as to whether or not it is legitimate., however, you will be safe if you remember my motto, trust me, you can’t trust anyone.”

TIPS

Obviously, if you are not a Costco member, you will immediately know that the text message is a scam.  For everyone else it is important to remember that whenever you get a phone call, text message or email, you can never be sure as to who is really contacting you.  Therefore you should never click on links or provide personal information unless you have absolutely confirmed that the communication was legitimate.  In this case, Costco will never threaten you with cancellation of your membership for failing to answer a survey, however, if you have any concern that such a text message might be legitimate, you should merely contact Costco so you can confirm whether or not the communication was legitimate.  Here is a link to the section of the Costco website that provides contact information for Costco.  https://customerservice.costco.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/9

For those of you receiving the Scam of the day through an email, I just want to remind you that if you want to see the ever increasing list of Coronavirus scams go to the first page of the http://www.scamicide.com website and click on the tab at the top of the page that indicates “Coronavirus Scams.”  Scamicide was recently cited by the New York Times as one of three best sources for information about Coronavirus related scams.

If you are not a subscriber to Scamicide.com and would like to receive daily emails with the Scam of the day, all you need to do is to go to the bottom of the initial page of http://www.scamicide.com and click on the tab that states “Sign up for this blog.”