The Truth About The Viral “Brushing Scam” In Idaho

Scams are popular this time of year so it's important to know what to look for and how to protect yourself. Our law enforcement has been pretty solid about keeping us in the loop regarding these scams and there's one particular scam that needs some clarification.

Beware of the QR Codes!

Canyon County Sheriff's Office recently shared a post from Blaine County Sheriff Idaho to alert people about a popular scam involving QR codes going around.

"A 'brushing' scam is when someone receives an unexpected gift or item not ordered in the mail from a place like Amazon or another company," the post says.

"When the recipient opens the package to see what it is and possibly who sent it, there is a QR code to scan to find out who sent the gift."

It's scanning that QR code that police say is a bad idea.

"Once the code is scanned, all the information on that phone is accessible to the scammers including personal and financial information. Often the victim's bank accounts are drained."

In this scenario, police say you can keep the gift in question so that's a silver lining. But, you don't want to scan because you'll lose all of your data!

...Right?

Not So Fast!

This scam sounds like something that can happen (and does happen) but can a thief steal all of your data from a QR code?

We looked into it and according to Snopes, a fact-checking site, that's not the entire truth.

"While it's true brushing scams are real and potentially pose some dangers, these copied-and-pasted posts exaggerated the threat posed by the QR codes," Snopes revealed.

"The mere act of scanning a QR code doesn't necessarily trigger immediate consequences such as a compromised phone, stolen personal and financial information or drained bank accounts."

They go on to explain what scammers can use the QR code for which includes collecting "location, the number of times the code has been scanned and at what times, plus the operating system of the device which scanned the codes."

Scammers could link the QR code to different forms that trick the user into putting in more personal info but the code itself can't automatically steal data.

Check out the full viral post below... just make sure you fact-check any info before believing 100% of it!