KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — The Better Business Bureau is warning people not to respond to a suspicious text message being sent to many people. It comes from various unknown phone numbers, with a picture of a girl, but the person behind the phone isn't her. It's a scammer trying to steal personal information.
"Pictures of women that come through and say, 'Hey do you want to go for round two?' I mean when you click on that all you're doing is opening yourself up to some malware," said Tony Binkley, the president of the Better Business Bureau.
A woman in downtown Knoxville, Julie Hall, said Monday she was attacked by hackers last week. She said it took a hacker just 48 hours to get control over her electronic devices.
"This is too funny that you're even asking me this, because I just bought a new laptop and it got hacked the second day and they got into my phone as well," Hall said. "Everything is on my phone like everybody else, I'm certain — all your information, your banking information. So yeah, it's scary."
She immediately purchased virus protection after hackers broke into her devices, she said.
In 2021 the number of fraud reports increased by 70% from the year before, according to The Federal Trade Commission. It received 2.8 million reports of fraud last year and said consumers lost almost $6 billion.
Charles Milton said he has come close to falling for it a few times. For the most part, he said he knows how to spot a scam phone call. However, when it comes to scammers using social media, it's trickier.
"It said, We saw this video of you,' and they sent it to me and I thought it was of me," Milton said, describing a message that popped into his Facebook messenger app.
Milton said when he clicked the video link, the same message was sent out to all his Facebook friends and it wasn't him in the video. Instead, it was an adult video clip.
"Sending this terrible, terrible, terrible video that was supposedly of me. It was so embarrassing," Milton said.
While asking people in Market Square if they had ever been scammed, 10News even received the latest circulating scam text. It's a picture of a girl saying "it's been a while."
It came from an "865" area code, which as scammers try to mimic one of the most popular area codes in East Tennesseans.
"It's the day and age we live in. We're just going to have to put a password on everything, make it tough and make it hard for somebody to get into it," Binkley said.
The Better Business Bureau said the scammers are usually after victims' money. However, there could be other motivations to scam people.
"Their intent is one thing, it's to get your information, get as much as they can get and get it as easily as they can get it," Binkley said. "It could be worse than that. There could be some sex trafficking behind that we don't really know."
The moral of the story, he said, is not to stick around to find out. If you get one of these messages, delete or ignore it. Whatever you do, he said, don't click any links!
"Just resist the urge to click on it, because it's going to lead you to a place you don't want to end up," Binkley said.
To report a scam or fraud, you can at The Better Business Bureau of Greater Tennessee. Find more information on its website.