Hopefully by now you already know better, especially if you are a regular reader of the Internet Patrol, and so you haven’t responded and called that number, where somebody impersonating an AT&T payment agent will happily take your personal details, including, no doubt, your AT&T login information, as well as your credit card details. (We have not called the number ourselves – if someone reading this has called that number, please recount your experience for us!)

The 4422850125 number is just one of a series of numbers that these text messages say to call, even the messages coming from 1410100009 are telling the recipients to call one of several different numbers.

This is because, of course, they are generating both the number that you are to call, and the the number that they are using to call you, by either computer or online services designed just for these purposes.

Some of the numbers that you may be told to call in these scam text messages include: 7076618028, 7076618029, and 2192490568.

Some of the numbers from which they appear to originate include 410-200-500 and 231-459-6189.

In a thread over at OnlineThreatAlerts.com, people are saying things such as:

I received the same message. Suspicious because I firmly believe AT&T (or any vendor) would have contacted me via my e-mail on file – not via a private message. I immediately went to my AT&T account and found my payments were up to date and I had 0 balance. Also if you first check the information about the message without opening it, you will find a convoluted origin thread-a dead giveaway.

and

I received one just now, with the MSG: 4896. Super suspicious, I always go to their website. Never reply to an email or text you don’t know. Maybe someday these low lifes’ will get a real life!

and

I just got the same message. I checked my at&t app and it says my payment posted yesterday and it was deducted from my bank account. This is definitely a scam. I would’ve known without checking but because I received this message around the date my payment usually posts, I checked to be sure. The message was sent from 1410200516.

One commenter on that thread did call, and says that “I did call the phone number but received a recording about a “locked” debit card. At that point, I hung up.”

In any event, as we always tell you, if you get a call or text message or email out of the blue like this, always, always, ALWAYS go directly to the website of the organization that the text message appears to be from, and log in directly to your account. If your vendor needs to reach you about an issue with your account, there will be a message for you there, in your account. At least 9 times out of 10, a text message requiring you to take some action to fix an issue with your account will actually be a bogus message trying to steal your information.

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