Local specialists share the red flags and smart habits that can protect you.
A few months ago, a smart, successful, savvy colleague called me in tears: She’d received a text from our boss, asking her to (1) go to Wawa to (2) purchase Apple gift cards and (3) scratch off the code on the back, then (4) text the numbers to her. Always a dutiful employee — someone who is often responsible for buying staff gifts because of her good taste and reliability — she did as she was told.
Only problem was, when she called our boss to tell her it was done? Said boss had no idea what she was talking about. Turns out, my colleague was one of the countless victims of this increasingly common, albeit bizarre, local scam. In an era when scammers are working en masse and their methods are increasingly sophisticated, she is decidedly not alone.
Maybe you or someone you know have been targeted in a plot like this. Or maybe you’ve heard about the other common Philly scams, people getting fake PPA parking tickets and PPD speeding tickets — via text? Financial scams abound — Pew reports that “online scams and other internet crimes are skyrocketing, with a record $16.6 billion in losses reported to the FBI in 2024. The federal government, banks and companies are all sounding alarms.” And AI is making scams not only more ubiquitous, but more convincing…