Got a Text Saying "Hi Mom, This Is My New Number"? It's Almost Always a Scam.
TL;DR
- A text from an unknown number opening with “Hi Mom” or “Hi Dad” and claiming your kid lost their phone is almost always a scam. The FTC tracks it on its Family Emergency Scams page.
- Reply once and a “small favor” follows within hours: Zelle, Venmo, a wire, or gift cards. The amount is usually $200 to $2,000, small enough to feel plausible.
- The 30-second verification: call your kid at their real saved number. If they don’t pick up, text that number, then try a sibling, partner, or friend before you reply to the new one.
- The FBI’s 2025 IC3 report logged over $7.7 billion in losses among victims 60 and older, a 37 percent jump over 2024, with an average loss of $38,500.
- If you already sent money, call your bank’s fraud line now, not the regular support line, and report at ReportFraud.ftc.gov and IC3.gov.
Your phone lights up. A number you don’t recognize. The message is short.
“Hi Mom, my phone broke, this is my new number. Text me back when you get this.”
You scroll up. The number isn’t saved as one of your kid’s. But it feels real, and your kid actually does drop their phone all the time.
If you reply, you’re in the funnel. The next message will ask for a small favor that only a parent can do, and it will sound just believable enough to act on.
Why “Hi Mom” texts work even when you’re paying attention
The “Hi Mom” scam (sometimes called the family imposter scam, or the “Hi Mum, Hi Dad” scam in the UK and Australia) is one of the most copy-pasted plays in fraud right now. Norton and Bitdefender both track it across SMS, iMessage, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger. The opener barely changes because it doesn’t have to.
It works because it bypasses three things at once.
It feels personal. The greeting names your role, not “Dear Customer.”
It has a built-in cover for the unknown number. The phone broke. The phone got stolen. They’re borrowing a friend’s phone. Whatever you imagine, the scammer will confirm.
It triggers your parent brain before your scam brain. You’re not asking “is this real.” You’re asking “is my kid okay.”
The FTC’s Family Emergency Scams page is direct about how the next step plays out: “Scammers always say you have to pay right away by wiring money through a company like Western Union or MoneyGram, sending cryptocurrency, using a payment app, or by putting money on a gift card and then giving them the numbers on the back.”
How the conversation plays out if you reply
A reply confirms the line. Even a “honey is that you?” tells the scammer they’ve reached the right kind of target. From there the script almost writes itself.
The “child” explains the new number. Broken phone. Lost phone. Job site where the phone got soaked. They ask you to save the new number. Some send a fake screenshot of a cracked screen.
Then a problem shows up. Their banking app won’t work on the borrowed phone. They have a contractor waiting on a payment. They owe a friend back for covering a tab. The ask is usually $200 to $2,000, small enough that you’d pay if it really were them, big enough to be worth the scammer’s time.
Payment instructions follow. Zelle or Venmo. Apple Cash. A wire to “their bank.” Gift cards from CVS or Target. The scammer pushes urgency the entire time. “Can you do it in the next ten minutes, I’m late.”
If you send, they come back. Apologetic. The contractor needs more. The car got towed. The ask escalates until you stop replying or the bank flags the transfer.
The 30-second verification that ends it
This is the only step that matters. Before you reply, before you save the new number, before anything else:
- Open your contacts. Find your kid’s real saved number.
- Call it. If they pick up, ask if they texted you about a new number. If they didn’t, you’re done. Block the new number.
- If they don’t pick up (in class, at work, asleep), text the real number: “Did you just text me from a different phone?”
- If you still can’t reach them, call someone else in their life. A sibling. Their partner. Their roommate. A name from their group chat. Someone will know if there’s actually an emergency.
Do not use a number the new texter gives you. Do not tap “call” inside the new thread. Use the number you already had. That is the whole defense.
The FTC adds one more piece of advice aimed at older parents: a scammer will often tell you to keep the emergency quiet. “Don’t tell Dad.” “Don’t worry your sister.” Treat that line as a confirmation it’s a scam. A real kid in real trouble usually doesn’t ask you to hide it.
A family safe word makes it bulletproof
Set a family safe word. One short word the whole family agrees on, not posted anywhere online, not in a group chat, not the dog’s name. If anyone in the family ever needs money in an emergency, they have to say the word.
This is the same defense the FBI recommends for the AI voice-cloning version of the grandparent scam, and it works just as well over text. A scammer who’s been pretending to be your daughter for an hour won’t know her word is “mango.”
What to do if you already sent money
If it just happened, move fast. The first 24 hours are when most of the recovery options are still open.
For Zelle, Venmo, Cash App, or Apple Cash: log in and check whether the transfer can be canceled. Once it posts to the recipient’s bank it’s almost always gone, but a transfer sitting as “pending” can sometimes be pulled.
For a bank wire: call your bank’s fraud line directly, not the regular customer service number. Tell them it was wire fraud, give them the time and the recipient bank. A recall is rare but possible if you call within hours.
For gift cards: call the issuer (Apple, Target, CVS, Amazon). Read them the card numbers. If the scammer hasn’t drained the balance yet, the issuer can sometimes freeze it.
Then file two reports. One at ReportFraud.ftc.gov, one at IC3.gov. Both are short. Both feed the data that shapes the next round of warnings.
Our post on what to do in the first 48 hours after a scam covers the rest, including the “recovery scam” that often follows: a second scammer who claims they can get your money back for a fee.
How to keep these texts from reaching your phone
The “Hi Mom” opener is so formulaic that decent spam filters catch most of them before you see them. A few things help on iPhone.
Turn on Settings → Messages → Filter Unknown Senders. It sorts texts from anyone not in your contacts into a separate tab. It doesn’t block the text, but it removes the lock-screen panic factor. You only see “Hi Mom” if you go looking for it. Our deeper post on why Filter Unknown Senders isn’t enough by itself explains where that setting falls short.
Add a third-party SMS filter that blocks by keyword and content, not just by phone number. Phrases like “Hi Mom this is my new number,” “lost my phone,” and “new phone who dis” rotate through hundreds of throwaway numbers a week. Filtering by content catches the pattern instead of chasing each number one at a time. See how to block spam texts by keyword on iPhone for the setup.
Report the message before you delete it. On iPhone, “Report Junk” sends the sender and message to Apple and your carrier. Forwarding it to 7726 (which spells SPAM) reports it to your carrier directly. That feeds the community blocklists that catch the next person’s version of the same text.
Older parents and grandparents get hit hardest with this one, partly because they read every text the phone shows them. If you’re an adult kid setting up a parent’s phone this weekend, turn on Filter Unknown Senders for them and agree on a safe word over dinner. Both take less than five minutes and they remove almost the entire attack surface.
Not Today is a free spam-blocking app for iPhone. We built it to catch spam before it reaches you, using keyword rules, a community database of 85,000+ reported numbers, and optional AI detection. No account required. Download on the App Store.