SPOKANE, Wash. — As the winter holidays approach, the United States Postal Service is raising awareness about how to stay safe from online scams.
USPS said with the increase in online holiday shopping, there has been an increase in scam texts and emails claiming to be from the postal service.
“These scammers get very, very sophisticated,” said John Wiegand, a Postal Inspector in Spokane.
USPS said it will never send a customer a text message, unless they have previously signed up for texts regarding a specific delivery.
Many of the fake texts and emails are scammers looking to access your personal information by posing as the USPS.
“Some of them are going to ask you to call in, some are going to ask you to fill out forms. Sometimes, it can be just as much as clicking on a link in an email that initiatives a Trojan Horse [virus] on your laptop or computer. So, never, ever click on one of those links,” said Wiegand.
The best thing to do if you receive a suspicious text or email claiming to be the USPS is to delete it.
If you aren’t sure if it is real or not, you can always visit your local post office to verify if it really is a message from the postal service.
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