This is a text message sent to an employee of the Butler Eagle as he planned to start his weekend. See if you can figure out what’s wrong with it.

(Call now 8886881858 #9743) #ALERT ID: #261870 >>Unauthorized activity on your CARD 4:34:12 PM

The text message came from “XYZ banking Activity.” Well, not really. We won’t reveal the name of the bank included in the text message because it was from a scammer.

In this instance, it was easy for the person who received the text to tell this message was a scam. The intended victim is not a customer of XYZ Bank.

But if he had called the number listed in the text message, we can guess what would have happened next: He would talk to a friendly customer service agent who would ask for his bank card number. And then, by the next morning, that bank card would have several thousand dollars worth of unauthorized activity on it.

Unfortunately, that scam isn’t the only game in town. The same day the Butler Eagle reported on a similar fraud against West Penn customers. As per the Nov. 18 article, customers were falsely told their accounts were delinquent — and if they went through a certain procedure, the customers would never hear from them again. The last six words in the message were probably the only ones that were true.

Scammers can reach an audience of millions with emails, texts and phone calls that look and sound so authentic. We urge our readers to protect themselves. Here are a few tips on how to avoid getting swept up in one.

• Watch out for sentences where the words are stringed together, as if by someone just learning English.

• Watch out for words or terms that exist in Britain, but do not appear in American English, like “advert” or “au pair girl.”

• Be suspicious of any message that provides only one way to get in touch with the sender.

• Remember that even legitimate-looking emails can be faked, when somebody puts a real-looking logo on top of a scam letter. Always contact a company or bank by an established email or phone number, and not the number in a message demanding payment or financial information.

• Choose your charities carefully and make sure you know whom you are dealing with. Watch for organizations with similar sounding names. We’re pretty sure there’s no such thing as the Society for the Prevention of Animals.

• Never listen when told to pay a bill or a debt by any method that sounds odd, like through gift cards or cashing someone else’s check.

• Chances are, you didn’t suddenly win a sweepstakes, with a prize of “37$ millions dollars,” that you have no memory of ever entering.

• Chances are, no Nigerian prince has ever heard of you, let alone believes that you are the only one who can spring him from prison.

• Chances are, you don’t have a grandson traveling in Europe who has run afoul of the law and needs you to send him a few thousand bucks — right now! — to get him out of jail. And if, by chance, you do have a grandson in Europe who’s in trouble with the law, call his mother.

—LZ