Scam text message

fergeo

I am a time quicken user and I am very concerned about Quicken's security practices or better put, lack thereof. I received a text message "Quicken alert: You've set up an account with this phone number. Please use this link to verify: https://services.quicken.com/" (followed by a long series of numbers. The number of the sender (415) 360-6452. No way am I going to clickon the link. It is impossible to contact anyone from quicken. I called the support number (650-350-1900 and got a garbled voice mail that I could not understand. After looking through previous discussions it appears that this is an ongoing issue with Quicken that has not been addressed. Either contact me or I am an ex user and and will definitely not recommend Quicken.

Quicken Anja

Hello @fergeo,

Thank you for reaching out to the Community and expressing your concern, though I apologize for any confusion this text message may have caused.

The text message you described above is not a scam and is in fact a valid text sent out by Quicken Inc. For more information, please refer to this support article regarding this topic.

I hope this helps!

fergeo

The text is not clear, it states that a new account has been set up using my phone number. I DID NOT.set up a new account from my phone number. So why send me a text alerting me that a new account has been set up using my phone number? It is very common for phishing whacks to use this method to get you to click on a link. I suggest that you be more clear in your reason for the text. An email would be more appropriate so that the sender can be verified. The phone number that sent the text to me is listed to MCI TRANSMISSION SERVICE.

BK

We all receive sporadic [scam] messages appearing to be from entities that we do business with, asking us to verify the account or change password etc.  The issue typically is not with the lack of security or privacy on the part of the legitimate entity, rather that our detailed information is already out there and the scammers are using creative methods to connect the dots and make it look authentic.

I too have received that message, and in my case it was legitimate.  Seems like you certainly took the proper approach to think twice before clicking and that is what matters.  And now many of us will be more vigilant as well - so Thank you.

Chris_QPW

fergeo said:

The text is not clear, it states that a new account has been set up using my phone number. I DID NOT.set up a new account from my phone number. So why send me a text alerting me that a new account has been set up using my phone number?

There is basically two things that Quicken Inc is doing wrong with this message/process.

First off there isn’t any “context” for this message.  Most legitimate requests like this are in the context of doing something else.  For instance you log into a site and it posts a message that they need to verify you and will send a text message or such.  Quicken Inc’s is totally out of the blue, the user has no idea what the message is connected two.

The second part of this “new account” (and not even explaining what kind of account).  “New” isn’t really new.
To the user “new” is I just created an account.  To Quicken Inc “new” is the user has created a Quicken Id/account sometime in the past and it is yet to be verified and on some “schedule” triggered sending out this message.

And not only is totally bad practice that they have not changed other than putting up that useless article (useless because it is only good for explaining a bad process after it has already been done), if one doesn’t verify the account with the link as far as anyone has been able to determine, nothing stops working.  Why have a verify process that doesn’t actually matter if you do it or not?