The practical answer is a two-step check: first see whether the message matches a known phishing story line, then compare what it asks you to do against the contact channel the provider itself publishes. The first step is documented by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC); the second step is a method this article constructs, not something the FTC's phishing guidance describes.
The FTC's guidance is dated October 11, 2024 and is titled "How To Recognize and Avoid Phishing Scams." It explains the goal behind these messages: scammers use email or text messages to try to steal your passwords, account numbers, or Social Security numbers. If they get that information, they could access your email, bank, or other accounts, or sell your information to other scammers.
What the FTC actually documents
The agency describes volume and intent. Scammers launch thousands of phishing attacks like these every day, and they are often successful. Scammers often update their tactics to keep up with the latest news or trends, but some common tactics repeat.
Phishing emails and text messages often tell a story to trick you into clicking a link or opening an attachment. You might get an unexpected email or text message that looks like it is from a company you know or trust, like a bank or a credit card or utility company, or from an online payment website or app.
The message could be from a scammer, who might:
- say they noticed some suspicious activity or log-in attempts, which is not true;
- claim there is a problem with your account or your payment information, when there is not;
- say you need to confirm some personal or financial information, when you do not;
- include an invoice you do not recognize, which is fake;
- want you to click a link to make a payment, where the link has malware;
- say you are eligible to register for a government refund, which is a scam.
Notice the difference between the debunked story lines and the malware item. For suspicious activity, the account or payment problem, the confirmation request, the invoice, and the refund, the FTC tells you the stated premise is false. For the payment link, the FTC's point is that the link carries malware, not that a payment problem is unreal. Keep those two kinds of signal separate when you write down what a message claims.
Step one: label the story line, not the whole message
The FTC also notes that these messages often look real at first glance. Text that uses a company's logo or familiar branding is not proof of origin. The agency's example describes an email that looks real but is not, with signs of a scam even though it appears to come from a company you know and even uses the company's logo in the header.
So do not start with the logo. Separate the message's claim from its appearance. Write the claim in one sentence, then check it against the list above. A match tells you the message fits a documented tactic. It does not, by itself, tell you anything about a particular provider.
Step two: compare against the provider's published contact policy
This is the constructed step, and it belongs to you, not to the FTC. Retrieve the provider's contact channel independently — from a source you reached yourself, not from the message. Then ask three questions:
- Does the provider use the channel this message used for account or payment issues?
- Does the provider ask for account numbers, passwords, or identity numbers over that channel?
- Does the message push you to act through a link it supplied, rather than a route the provider publishes?
A contradiction between what the message asks and what the provider publishes is the finding. A fit with the FTC list is supporting context, not the finding by itself.
A short worked example
Suppose a text message says there is a problem with your payment information, includes a link, and displays a logo. Against the FTC list, the payment-problem wording fits a documented tactic, and the embedded link asks you to click a link to make a payment. Now read the provider's independently retrieved policy. Hypothetical: the policy states that the provider never requests payment details by text and that account issues are handled only inside the signed-in app. In that case the contradiction is the finding — the message asks for something the published policy rules out, through a channel the policy does not authorize. The FTC list helped you name the tactic; the policy comparison supplied the conclusion. If the message instead matched the provider's published channel and request, the FTC list alone would not justify calling it fraudulent.
Checklist before you respond
- Write the message's claim in one sentence.
- Mark whether it fits a documented tactic, and whether the premise is one the FTC calls false or whether it is the malware link item.
- Retrieve the provider's contact policy from a separate route.
- Note any contradiction between the request and the published policy.
- Do not treat a matching logo or familiar name as evidence either way.
- Do not conclude fraud from a similar name alone.
What the source does not say
The FTC guidance does not describe any specific provider's contact policy, authentication practice, or account-recovery process. It does not say that a message matching one of its listed tactics is fraudulent in a particular case, and it does not address digital-asset platforms or wallet providers. It does not provide a test, a scoring system, or a standard for identifying impersonation. It does not say that using a logo proves a message is genuine or fake.
Nothing here indicates how often any provider contacts users, what channels it uses, or how it verifies identity. The policy-comparison method above is an editorial construction; it has not been evaluated, tested, or endorsed by the FTC or any provider. The source also does not tell you what to do with your money or accounts, and this article does not offer that either.