Harris County Precinct 4 Constable Mark Herman is warning Spring-area residents not to click links in text messages that claim to be from the United States Postal Service.
Herman's office posted the alert Sunday, Aug. 16, on its official X account, telling residents the texts are fraudulent and built to steal personal and financial information.
The scam, known as "smishing," uses fake texts that typically claim a package delivery requires action, such as rescheduling a delivery, paying unpaid postage or confirming a missed package. The messages include a link to a website built to look like the real USPS site, where victims are prompted to enter credit card numbers, passwords, Social Security numbers or other sensitive data.
Herman's office issued three directives: do not click the link, do not reply to the message and do not provide personal information.
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service confirms that USPS does not send unsolicited texts about deliveries. The agency will only text a customer who has requested tracking for a specific package, and that message will never contain a link.
If you didn't request tracking and the text contains a link, it's fake.
What to do if you clicked
Residents who already clicked a link in one of these texts should contact their bank or credit card company immediately, even if they did not submit any information on the site, according to the Postal Inspection Service.
How to report
To report a USPS-related scam text, residents can email a screenshot showing the sender's phone number and date, along with their name, to [email protected]. They can also forward the suspicious text to 7726 to help flag the scam phone number.
Non-USPS delivery scams can be reported to the Federal Trade Commission at ReportFraud.ftc.gov or to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov.
This is the second consumer safety advisory from Herman's office in August. On Aug. 7, the constable urged Spring parents to blur identifying school details in first-day-of-school photos posted to social media.
