Wrong Number Scam

An intentional “wrong number” text or email can be the beginning of a much larger scam. It may look innocent—someone asking about a meeting, an appointment, a business matter, or simply saying “Hi!”—but the goal may be to get you to respond.

Even a polite reply can tell a scammer something valuable: your phone number or email address is active, monitored by a real person, and worth pursuing.

Once you respond, the scammer may try to turn the conversation into a friendship, romance, or “chance” connection. They often use friendly, carefully scripted conversation to build trust and lower your defenses. Eventually, the conversation may shift toward money, personal information, cryptocurrency, or an “investment opportunity.”

One type of scam that can begin this way is a pig-butchering scam. The scammer may pretend to be a successful businessperson or investor and spend days, weeks, or even months building a relationship with you before encouraging you to put money into a completely fraudulent investment platform.

There is another reason not to engage: everything you tell the scammer can become useful information. Your name, occupation, location, family information, interests, and other details can be collected and used to make future scams more convincing.

What should you do?

If you receive a message from someone you don't know that appears to have been sent to the wrong person:

Don't reply. Don't click. Don't engage.

Block the sender and report the message as spam. For unwanted text messages, you can also forward the message to 7726 (SPAM), which helps wireless carriers identify and investigate unwanted messages.

Remember: If the message was genuinely sent to the wrong person, you don't need to tell the sender that. Your silence is enough to let them know they have the wrong number.

And if that “wrong number” message happens to include a picture of an attractive stranger trying to start a conversation with you?

That's a pretty good time to hit “Report Spam.”