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Australians bombarded with fake Afterpay, Latitude verification code scam texts

Australians have been left scratching their heads after being bombarded with spam messages with no obvious scam behind them.

In the past two weeks, a number of Aussies have received messages that appear to have been sent from two buy now, pay later services – Afterpay and Latitude.

The text messages are nearly identical, where the recipient receives a verification code for their so-called account.

“Your Afterpay verification is …” and “ … is your LatitudePay verification code”, the messages read.

The puzzling issue is, most people receiving the texts have never been a customer at these companies.

Afterpay and Latitude have also confirmed to news.com.au they did not send the messages and that there has been no breach from their end.

Instead, cyber criminals are likely going through a list of mobile numbers and have spoofed their own numbers so it appears on someone’s phone with the name of the company.

And unlike other scams, the text messages do not try to push the recipient into clicking on a link or giving away personal information.

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People who received the messages jumped online and speculated about the motives behind the scam.

One person assumed somebody had typed in the wrong number, causing the code to be sent to their phone instead. But then their partner got the same text, making them conclude that “something was up”.

The numbers are automatically underlined, so some recipients assumed there was a link behind the numbers which would download malware if clicked on.

But one brave soul clicked on the underlined code and found something strange.

“There is no link behind the code, it’s just plain text,” they wrote.

Others called the texts “weird” and admitted they weren’t “entirely sure” what the ploy was.

“Too many people have had this to be a coincidence now. It’s definitely a potential scam or dry test for one,” added another.

With lots of customers and non-customers reporting the scam, Afterpay alerted the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s ScamWatch division.

Accordingly, last week, ScamWatch issued a warning.

“Did you receive an Afterpay verification code recently but you’re not a customer?” their warning begins.

“Ignore these and any similar messages. Only ever contact business via information you have found independently.”

Latitude and Afterpay also put out an alert on their websites.

“We have received reports of Afterpay users and non-Afterpay users receiving unsolicited text messages,” Afterpay said.

“Unexpected text messages or emails can safely be ignored.

“We have sophisticated tools to monitor and respond to these events and we also collaborate with our peers across the information security industry, including government agencies, to address phishing scams.”

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Latitude also released a statement, saying: “A number of customers have reported receiving unsolicited verification text messages from LatitudePay.

“These text messages were also received by non-LatitudePay users.

“Rest assured, your account security has not been compromised and there has been no unauthorised access or activity on your account. If you received an unexpected text message from LatitudePay, you can ignore it and delete it from your device.”

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Almeda Bohannan

Update: 2024-05-06