I sent my brother a care package for his birthday and shared the tracking link with him so he could see the progress. If he just clicked the link, he would see that it’s being shipped through FedEx.
This is a trend in my family. They expect easy answers instead of thinking critically and using the information available to them.
ETA: We’ve been texting back and forth all week to finalize the order. I scrolled up in the message before taking the screenshot to hide previous texts.
This is classic Phishing scam territory.
I have no idea how tech smart your family is, but mine is really hit and miss lol.... So if say, my mom sent me this message out of the blue, I aint clicking shit till I know with 100% certainly that something aint off lol.
I'm sure there's additional context that isn't in the text, unless you reckon OP figured out his brother needed food without ever speaking to him about the matter. Considering the response, I would assume the brother fully expected the tracking information and is just exhibiting a particular brand of stupidity. Willful ignorance.
What if my brother was kidnapped by a sophisticated organization of Russian spies intent on infiltrating the United States via breaking into my home and stealing my collection of squishmallows?
Never heard of phone hacking then? If it said “I’ve sent you a food order for your birthday on xxxx date, here’s the link, hope you have a good one” (or something similar) then it’s less sus.
I didn’t answer the question but I did put some additional context in my post. Here is more of our texts from this week, where we planned what I would send. It’s mostly food but he needed some body care items too.
Ah yes, the most logical conclusion after your family member wishing you happy birthday and telling you they are sending a care package is to them assume that a follow up link saying "here's the tracking for your care package" is from someone who stole their phone and quickly set up a phishing scam
Huh. You seem to have a lot of context I don't have from this post. OP states they sent a package but did not state that the person was informer ahead of time. Which means this text at 8am would be unexpected. And it doesn't even say happy birthday so why would I assume it's birthday food? I'm happy for you that your life has been so good you can't even fathom this being a problem.
You seem to be the one inventing a lot of additional context like a phone being stolen, the person who stole it knowing it was OP's brother's birthday, AND also being a phishing scammer...
Okay once again, there is nothing in the original text hinting at a birthday. Secondly, I'm not inventing context. I'm staying, " I don't click random links" you asked why wouldn't you click a random link, and multiple told you the same thing. Scammers can spoof numbers or steal phones. So now you're acting as though me defending asking a question because I wouldn't personally click a random link means that I'm inventing context.
It's a link sent in a text with no OTHER context, this could easily have been a spam text from a compromised phone. Confirming it's not is the smart thing to do
You seriously cannot be this dense. OP sent it to their brother on their birthday. The text is coming from someone whose contact details they already have saved in their phone and is a family member.
So we should all just assume that any text from anyone in our contact list is fake? Even though OP had already told their sibling about the care package and then sent the link?
If the message has a link and almost nothing else, yes that's exactly correct. Sorry to be the messenger, but you should really search up some internet safety best practices, it's really easy to get scammed these days.
Except the existing context of OP already talking their brother and telling them they were sending a care package. You lot are insane. I sniff out attempted scams all the time and this is clearly not one if you engage your brain even slightly. Classic Reddit nonsense of blaming OP and twisting yourself in knots to justify it
Hahaha I'm well versed in scams from my line of work. I am the one that is continually identifying potential scams for my family. You lot are just jumping to try to justify a way to blame OP for a clearly normal situation between family members
How are so many people ignoring the fact that this came as a text from his siblings phone number and contact along with the rest of their message history? Like what??
The brother is in the right here. Scammy BS can come from anywhere, even from hackers impersonating family members from saved numbers.
The fact that you didn't have a prior convo nor gave any context aside from food coming, I'd be a tiny bit skeptical as well. If you just got off the phone and he expected that text, then I'd agree with you. Not saying your family doesn't use the tools available to them nor am I saying he intentionally didn't click it for the reasons I gave, but this specific context I agree with the brother not clicking it.
You have literally no evidence that there wasn't a prior conversation, it is far more likely that OP simply cropped the text chain to focus on the two messages in question. Given it is their brother's birthday they likely already called them or exchanged texts. This is simply the last two texts in the conversation.
I know, that's why I said the disclaimer of if they just got off the phone, I'd agree.
I don't see why OP would have intentionally excluded previous convo to give more context for their side vs giving limited evidence and claiming it's infuriating. That's why I commented what I did.
Also, you can't criticize me and say "you have literally no evidence" then in the same comment say "they likely already called them or exchanged texts". You also LITERALLY have no evidence, so you should equally not make assumptions. However, what I did was go off what was in front of me, not making additive assumptions outside of that
I added more context to my post. I intentionally hid the previous messages, this wasn’t a first message in a conversation. Here is more of our text conversation.
Yep, I see your point. That would be infuriating. Why not post the previous texts so we can see context on why you're infuriated? The original post makes it look like you texted him out of the blue and sent a link.
Just to highlight the mildly infuriating part without people having to read the boring stuff. I didn’t consider the possibility it would look scammy that way
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u/wllaella 4d ago
Not even a thank you?