March Madness Bracket Pool Scam?

[AgentZero]

Received a text this morning from an unknown number about joining a bracket pool...kind of strange, but figured it might be from a contact whose number I didn't transfer when I got a new phone almost two years ago. When I read it, it sounded pretty normal until the last sentence about paying before getting the bracket pool info.

I've gotten a lot of automated telemarketers or calls from potential scammers with spoofed numbers in the past, which I don't answer, but this was a text and on top of that, an iMessage, not an SMS. The text is from what shows a local area code and another thing worth noting is that there's no potential bad link or Venmo (to send the money) in it at all- meaning whoever it is would have to respond to my reply and also potentially meaning that this is some small-scale scam, unless they have they have replies automated on a large-scale.

Here's a screenshot I took:

Has anyone heard about anything like this? Is it possible to spoof numbers of iMessages? Does it seem like I'm being targeted specifically (someone who I know/knows me with my number) or does this look like a larger-scale and/or automated operation using numbers from directories, etc.?

 

[Belgium]

I can tell you it is possible to spoof iMessages yes. It's possible to spoof a sim card. Not sure about the other parts.

 

[AgentZero]

I can tell you it is possible to spoof iMessages yes. Not sure about the other parts.

Is it relatively easy to do? Never received or heard of someone receiving a spam or scam message via iMessage, only via SMS.

 

[Belgium]

Is it relatively easy to do? Never received or heard of someone receiving a spam or scam message via iMessage, only via SMS.

I'm guessing it's a mix of being extremely technically complex and requiring a specific set of tools that are probably very advanced too.
I'm not sure how it works, I only know roughly what it can do. Hasn't happened to me personally but I know of an online business acquaintance that I have frequent communications with who had his social media accounts stolen through the sim card spoof method. Basically they somehow spoof your sim card, request password resets or security codes and their spoofed device receives them as well. It's a little different than standard phone number spoofing because it can both send and receive messages like an exact copy. There's been a select few other cases I'm aware of as well but less than a handful. All of them specifically targeted very valuable (several thousand dollars at minimum) social media accounts. One additional factor I know of is that the method can only be used in the US against US individuals for whatever reason.

I'm not sure how hackers/scammers would be able to send you a spoofed iMessage text, as far as I know that's impossible through standard phone number spoofing etc. Either it's simply a local scammer, an individual or collective appearing to use the sim card spoof method or some other hack I've never heard of. But it's certainly very odd.

 

[Mark Antony]

Surprised you didn't just ignore/delete that and move on.

 

[AgentZero]

I'm guessing it's a mix of being extremely technically complex and requiring a specific set of tools that are probably very advanced too.
I'm not sure how it works, I only know roughly what it can do. Hasn't happened to me personally but I know of an online business acquaintance that I have frequent communications with who had his social media accounts stolen through the sim card spoof method. Basically they somehow spoof your sim card, request password resets or security codes and their spoofed device receives them as well. It's a little different than standard phone number spoofing because it can both send and receive messages like an exact copy. There's been a select few other cases I'm aware of as well but less than a handful. All of them specifically targeted very valuable (several thousand dollars at minimum) social media accounts. One additional factor I know of is that the method can only be used in the US against US individuals for whatever reason.

I'm not sure how hackers/scammers would be able to send you a spoofed iMessage text, as far as I know that's impossible through standard phone number spoofing etc. Either it's simply a local scammer, an individual or collective appearing to use the sim card spoof method or some other hack I've never heard of. But it's certainly very odd.

Interesting...appreciate the info

Surprised you didn't just ignore/delete that and move on.

Was just curious if this was a wide-scale thing that anyone had ever heard of...also to aware a potential future maker of one of those "sent money first, got scammed" threads that always pop up