Security News > 2020 > September > SMS phishing scam pretends to be Apple “chatbot” – don’t fall for it!
Sadly what works for legitimate businesses almost always works for cybercriminals too, so there are plenty of crooks still using SMSes for phishing - an attack that's wryly known as smishing.
Your phone's operating system will happily recognise when the text in an SMS looks like a URL and automatically make it clickable for you.
As you see above, if you do click through the questions then you end up on a scam site where you find there's a courier delivery charge for the "Free" phone, typically between £1 and £2.
Then you end up on a credit card payment form that's hosted on what looks like a "Special offers" website with a a believable enough name, and with an HTTPS security padlock if you take the time to look.
The crooks have made numerous spelling and visual blunders in this scam.