Spoofing

Spoofing means faking where a message or call appears to come from. In email, a scammer can set any display name and sometimes even fake the sender address so it looks like it came from your bank or your boss. In phone calls, caller ID spoofing makes your screen show a trusted number, even your bank's real one. Text messages can be spoofed to appear in the same thread as real messages from a company. Because of spoofing, the name or number you see is never proof of who is really contacting you. The safe habit is to check through a contact method you find yourself, such as the number on the back of your card or the company's official app.