T-Mobile revealed that they have sent out a warning to customers in Louisiana regarding a new cell phone “phishing” scam that’s been going around since Wednesday morning. 

According to a report, customers in the New Orleans and Baton Rouge metro area are being targeted by this scam with a text message offering them a $200 rebate “as appreciation for your business.” Representatives from T-Mobile have advised customers not to click on any link as it is likely a ploy to gain access to their phone or to get their bank information. 

A T-Mo customer representative has confirmed receiving reports from seven Louisiana-based customers. Her other colleagues have reported more incidents on their security chat group.

According to the rep, the texts have been sent out from different numbers, including an area code from New Orleans and Miami-Dade. The dialing codes also indicate that these text messages may have originated from the Philippines. 

It seems like the scam is only targeting Louisiana customers who may still “have their guards down and feeling desperate,” The rep shared in the report, especially since they recently encountered Hurricane Ida just a few days ago.

If you receive a message such as this, do not click the link in the message. T-Mobile suggests that you report the scam, including the telephone number, wording, link details, and time. Since these scams change frequently, there is currently no protocol for dealing with them. The best thing to do is to delete the message entirely. 

Source: Nola