By Joe Borders,

Marriage and Family Therapist
In Roseville and Sacramento
June 17, 2022

Scam Alert!

TinyUrl Sent Over Text Asking You To Verify Listing

I just received a text message from an unknown number saying

-To verify Your SacWellness listing, please confirm ownership -dont click this tiny url!-

SacWellness does not send out text messages to confirm listing ownership. Please do not click on this if you are getting this text message.

This scam is using tinyurls, something that many scams like this do.
If you ever get a tinyurl link, you can check to see what the url leads to or looks like by adding “preview.” to the beginning of it.
For example. if someone sends you -tinyurl.com/12345-, you can preview it by going to -preview.tinyurl.com/1234-

Most of the scams I’ve seen over the past couple of years have made use of TinyUrls because its very hard to see where the links actually go and its easy to send them in a way that makes them look like they’re coming from a legitimate source.

Unfortunately this is the kind of scam that someone can pull with any business without having any access to the site. I’m happy to confirm that nothing has happened on the website that indicates malware or hacking.

I’m partially sharing this knowing that this is a scam that will likely be replicated with other sites and you’ll encounter it again at some point over the next year. Watch out and share with your colleagues so they’re aware!

Click the following link to read about other alerts I’ve written about scams targeting therapists.

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