MITCHELL, S.D.  (MITCHELLNOW) The United States Postal Service is warning customers not to fall for “smishing” scams. John Hyatt with the Postal Service says smishing is the practice of sending fake text messages to smartphones asking users to click on a link to resolve a ZIP code or other issue with a pending package. He warns personal data is what the sender is after.

  “Basically, criminals trying to obtain personally identifying information about a person, such as accounts, usernames, passwords, dates of birth, credit card numbers – things like that.”

In 2020, the Internet Crime Complaint Center reported more than 240-thousand victims of smishing, phishing and other fraudulent schemes, costing more than 54-million dollars, with the average person losing about 800 dollars.

Smishing texts can be relentless this time of year, but Hyatt says you should never follow the message prompts.

   “When you get a suspicious text message, if you click on those links, it will take you to a website that could be downloading onto your phone, and once you submit that information then they use it for nefarious purposes.”

Hyatt says you will only receive text messages from the U-S-P-S if you have gone online and registered for such services.

  “You can sign up to receive text messages about a tracking number or you can go into the tracking service and put the number in and then ask for text-message updates or even an email update on ‘usps.com.'”

He says the Postal Service “informed delivery” program is being used by millions of Americans to receive legitimate messages about what packages are on the way. Go to the U-S-P-S-dot-com website for more information.